Catalan Pyrenees

The Catalan Pyrenees are proof that a community of sport does not need to be a city: it is a high-mountain territory that brings together ten comarques and 161 municipalities, from the Alt Pirineu to the Prepirineu, with barely 147,000 inhabitants spread over 7,437 square kilometres — about twenty per square kilometre. What unites that scattered population is sport and nature: more than 3,763 sports spaces and more than two million visitors a year. The bid was led by Puigcerdà, and the ACES evaluation committee toured the territory from the Cerdanya to the Vall d'Aran, passing through La Seu d'Urgell.

The mountain is the great sporting facility of the territory, with some 500 kilometres of skiable domains. Baqueira Beret, Spain's largest resort, offers 173 kilometres of slopes between 1,500 and 2,610 metres; the Alp 2500 domain, which links La Molina — Spain's oldest ski resort — and Masella, adds 145 kilometres; and to them are added Port del Comte, Vallter 2000 and the Vall de Núria. The high mountain also hosts one of the great events of the trail calendar: the Salomon Ultra Pirineu, in Bagà, whose flagship distance is 100 kilometres with 6,600 metres of positive elevation and which brings together more than 4,000 runners across all its categories.

In December 2022, the Catalan Pyrenees received at the European Parliament the flag accrediting them as European Community of Sport 2023, awarded by ACES Europe. It is one of the mountain communities of the network and an example of how ten comarques can pool a shared project in sport, in a territory that would otherwise measure its strength only by its small population.