Southern Europe · AND
Andorra
The story · 8 chapters
How it was drawn
A cluster of Pyrenean valleys crossed by Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Franks, which has kept two co-princes, one Spanish bishop and one French ruler, since a medieval agreement in 1278.
Play the story Take the first lessonThrough the ages
Rivals in history
The kingdoms, empires and states Andorra fought or stood against, from the first to today.
- Carthage218 BC
Polybius lists the Andosini among the Pyrenean peoples Hannibal fought and subdued in 218 BC, on his way to invade Italy at the start of the Second Punic War.
- Roman Republic218 BC to 195 BC
Rome drove Carthage out of Spain during the Second Punic War and then crushed revolts in the northeast, notably under Cato in 195 BC, bringing the Pyrenean valleys into its province.
- Emirate of Córdoba756 to 801
After the Muslim conquest reached the Pyrenees, the Emirate of Cordoba held the lands south of the mountains. Frankish campaigns pushed it back, taking Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801, and made Urgell a Christian frontier county.
- County of Foix1270 to 1278
The Counts of Foix, heirs to local noble claims, fought the Bishop of Urgell for the valleys in the 1270s. The Pareatge of 1278 ended the quarrel by making the two joint lords, the start of the co-principality.
- French First Republic1793 to 1806
Revolutionary France rejected the co-prince's rights and Andorra's yearly tribute as feudal in 1793, leaving the valleys without a French protector. Napoleon restored the arrangement by decree in 1806.
Today
Andorra now
The landlocked Principality of Andorra -- one of the smallest states in Europe and nestled high in the Pyrenees between the French and Spanish borders -- is the last independent survivor of the Hispanic March states created by Frankish King Charlemagne in 795 after he halted the Moorish invasion of Spain. The March states were a series of buffer states to keep the Muslim Moors from advancing into Christian France.
- Capital
- Andorra la Vella
- Government
- parliamentary democracy (since March 1993) that retains its chiefs of state in the form of a co-principality; the two princes are the President of France and Bishop of Seu d'Urgell, Spain
- Head of government
- Xavier Espot Zamora
- Head of state
- Emmanuel Macron
- Languages
- Catalan
- Area
- 468 km²
Through time
Then and now
- Population80,9002023 · 6,000 in 1950
- Life expectancy84.0 years2023 · 67.2 years in 1950
- Living in cities89%2025 · 39% in 1950
- Literacy83%1950
- Military alliancesNone of these2024 · None of these in 1950
- War deathsNone2025
Population: HYDE 3.3, Gapminder and UN WPP. GDP per capita: Maddison Project Database 2023. Urban share: UN WPP. Life expectancy: Riley, HMD, UN WPP. Literacy: OWID historical estimates, World Bank, UNESCO. Military spending: SIPRI. War deaths: UCDP. Political regime: V-Dem, Regimes of the World. All via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Alliances and organization memberships: compiled by Atlas. Satellites in orbit: CelesTrak SATCAT. Modern borders, backcast.
Relations
Close partners and tensions
Close partners
- France
- Spain
Summarised from World Bank and Wikipedia data, updated 23 October 2026.