Province of Villafranca

The Province of Villafranca (also known as Province of Villafranca del Bierzo, Province of El Bierzo, or Province of El Vierzo) was a province of Spain created in the 1822 territorial division of Spain (27 January 1822), during the Trienio Liberal of 1820–1823. Its population of 86,365 represented 0.7% of the total Spanish population of the time. Its capital was Villafranca del Bierzo. With the restoration of absolutism, this territorial division was revoked 1 October 1823. Although Javier de Burgos's 1833 territorial division of Spain was very close to that of 1833, the province of Villafranca was not recreated; the other two major changes were the omission of the provinces of Calatayud and Játiva.

The territories of the province of Villafranca included the present-day comarca of El Bierzo in the Province of León, plus several other Leonese municipalities and some other territories that now belong to the provinces of Lugo and Ourense.

Following the general pattern of the 1822 territorial division of Spain, the province was named after its capital city, Villafranca del Bierzo. However, the regionalists in this area have always favored the name El Bierzo or El Vierzo (El Bierzu in the local Bercian dialect).

There have been many Bercian administrative entities in the history of Spain. El Bierzo was one of the 40 provinces of the Crown of Castile under the Repartimiento of 1591. Later, until the territorial division in the 1780s by Floridablanca, it was habitually united with León and Asturias, and referred to as either the Partido de Ponferrada or the Provincia del Vierzo.

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