Llívia, Spain’s exclave in France

September 2023. Oriol and I are flying to Toulouse for a road trip in Occitania and (French) Catalonia. We include the Principality of Andorra, which I can finally tick off the bucket list, and Llívia, Spain‘s exclave in France. Besides Toulouse we visit Mont-Louis, Villefranche-de-Conflent, Perpignan and Carcassonne.

After visiting the Casa de la Vall in Andorra la Vella, we departed the principality via Spain, not without being stopped at the customs. Oriol had predicted it. Sporting a French number plate and leaving Andorra via Spain would have us stopped. But we didn’t smuggle anything so we were fine.

We would stay overnight in Perpignan, in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales (Eastern Pyrenees), in the region Occitania but also culturally and self-proclaimed Pyrénées Catalanes (Catalan Pyrenees), Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia or French Catalonia. But later on all that.

On our way to Perpignan we did several stops. The first stop: Llívia.

Llívia

Llívia is a town in the comarca of Cerdanya, province of Girona, in the region Catalonia in Spain. It is a Spanish enclave / exclave surrounded by the French département of Pyrénées-Orientales.

In 2009, the municipality of Llívia had a total population of 1,589. It is separated from the rest of Spain by a corridor about 1.6 km wide, which includes the French communes of Ur and Bourg-Madame. The Segre river, a tributary of the Spanish Ebro, flows through Llívia.

History

Llívia was the site of an Iberian oppidum that commanded the region and was named Julia Lybica by the Romans. It was the capital of Cerdanya in antiquity, before being replaced by Hix (now Bourg-Madame) in the Middle Ages. During the Visigothic period, its citadel, the castrum Libiae, was held by the rebel Paul of Narbonne against King Wamba in 672.

Train tracks of **Le Train Jaune** and the river.

Forgotten

Following the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659), the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 ceded the comarques of Roussillon, Conflent, Capcir, Vallespir, and northern Cerdanya to the French Crown.

The treaty thus established the Pyrenees as the border between France and Spain, while separating Northern Catalonia from Catalonia.

However, the treaty stipulated that only villages were to be ceded to France, and Llívia was considered a town (vila in Catalan), since it had the status of the ancient capital of Cerdanya.

So Llívia remained a Spanish enclave within France and did not become part of the Kingdom of France. This situation was confirmed in the subsequent Treaty of Llívia, signed in 1660.

Under the Nationalist government of Francisco Franco, residents required special passes to cross France to the rest of Spain. Today, with these countries in the Schengen Area, there are no frontier formalities and cross-border infrastructure is the only issue. The two countries share a hospital in Llívia, as well as other local initiatives.

Neutral Road

The enclave is accessible from Spain via a 1.8 km long road that up until the implementation of the Schengen Area in 1995 was considered a Neutral Road (a name you still find on maps) as defined in the Treaty of Llívia.

The road was designated as being a custom-free route across which the French were allowed free access from one part of the corridor to another and for the Spanish to travel freely between Puigcerdà and Llívia.

This road is the joint property of Spain and France and is designated in Spain as part of the N-154 and in France as jointly part of the Route nationale 20 and the RD68.

The road has been the subject of controversy over the years, particularly due to a number of stop signs placed by the French authorities and removed overnight by those opposed to them. This lasted for several years and became known as the War of the Stop Signs.

Catalan sentiments

During the vote for Catalan independence in 2017, 561 out of 591 votes cast in Llívia were in favor of independence.

The referendum was deemed illegal by the Spanish courts, but the Spanish police did not intervene to stop the vote in the town.

The city

Llívia is not a tourist attraction, except for geography geeks such as I, who can convince Oriol to take me to such geopolitical anomalies, such as the Tri-Country Point or Baarle-Hertog / Baarle-Nassau.

What’s there to see? The Roman archeological site, the Ruins of Llívia Castle and the Church of Our Lady of the Angels.

The Esteve Pharmacy, located in Llívia’s municipal museum, is a complete 18th-century pharmacy donated to the town by the family who owned it, on condition the contents remain in the town.

There are records of pharmacists practising in Llívia since medieval times. The pharmacy has a large display of albarelli, a type of ceramic jar used in pharmacies, as well as antique drugs, and one of the most important collections of prescription books in Europe. But it was closed.