Province of Villafranca

Although Javier de Burgos's 1833 territorial division of Spain was very close to that of 1822, the province of Villafranca was not recreated; the other two major changes were the omission of the provinces of Calatayud and Játiva.

Following the general pattern of the 1822 territorial division of Spain, the province was named after its capital city, Villafranca del Bierzo.

[2] Later, until the territorial division in the 1780s by Floridablanca, it was habitually united with León and Asturias,[2] and referred to as either the Partido de Ponferrada or the Provincia del Vierzo.

In this period, when conservatives and absolutists favored a system of partidos and liberals favored a division reflecting the newly rationalized departments of France, there were Bercian regionalists on both sides of that divide, each wanting the recognition of the region within whichever system they advocated.

[2] The liberal territorial division of 1822 seemed briefly to satisfy these ambitions; however, with the return to absolutism the following year, that decree was revoked, and the 1833 territorial division, which remains largely in effect down to the present day,[3][4] although hewing closely to the 1822 plan,[5] did not include a Bercian province.

Map of the 1822 territorial division of Spain , which included the Province of Villafranca. On this map it is at the upper leftmost of the four orange provinces making up the region of León .
The territory of the Province of Vierzo (Province of Villafranca) compared to the present-day comarca of El Bierzo . The gray blue is the present-day comarca . The dark blue represents parts of the province that fell outside the present comarca .
A 1786 map of the region refers to it by both the name Partido de Ponferrada and the name Provincia del Vierzo .