Castilla y León concentrates the largest number of municipalities in the country. Most have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and many barely exceed dozens of residents. In these municipalities with such scarce population, singular situations occur during elections, such as all residents being able to vote in a few hours and the polling station spending a large part of the day without activity, although by law it must remain open until 20:00 hours, and that in many of them electoral participation approaches 100 %.
Among the towns with fewer inhabitants, several extreme cases stand out, especially in provinces like Soria, Zamora or Palencia.
Salcedillo and the smallest villages of Castile and León
The case of Salcedillo (Palencia), with 18 inhabitants, symbolizes the extreme of this demographic reality. In villages of this size the electoral roll is minimal and the result of the vote can be known practically by counting on the fingers of one hand.
Other localities with a very reduced number of inhabitants are the Soria ones Estepa de San Juan, Rebollo de Duero, Villar del Río and Valdeprado; La Vid de Ojeda, in Palencia; the Zamora ones Matilla la Seca, Pobladura de Valderaduey and Fuentesecas; as well as Salvatierra de Tormes, in Salamanca. All of them have fewer than 50 inhabitants, according to the latest data from the INE.
This mosaic of micro-municipalities coexists with a few cities that concentrate a large part of the regional population, such as Valladolid, Burgos, León or Salamanca.
The political weight of the rural world
The demographic structure of Castilla y León is one of the factors that most conditions regional politics. The regional elections are held by provincial constituencies, which means that provinces with a small population have a relevant representation in the Cortes of Castilla y León. The result is that the rural world maintains a significant political weight, despite the loss of inhabitants.
In practice this translates into many electoral campaigns revolving around issues such as depopulation, healthcare services in rural areas, maintenance of schools in small towns, transport and connectivity, and support for agriculture and livestock farming.
In data
The political weight of the least populated provinces
The electoral system of Castilla y León grants representation to the autonomous Parliament through provincial constituencies. The law establishes that each province elects three fixed procurators, to which others are added depending on the population. This mechanism causes the least populated provinces to maintain a relevant political weight in the regional Parliament.
In practice, the Cortes of Castilla y León have 81 procurators distributed among the nine provinces. The distribution is as follows: Valladolid (15), León (13), Burgos (11), Salamanca (10), Zamora (7), Palencia (7), Ávila (7), Segovia (6) and Soria (5).
If the population is compared with the number of procurators, the difference in the weight of the vote is observed. Soria, with around 90,000 inhabitants, elects five procurators, which represents approximately one procurator for every 18,000 inhabitants. In contrast, Valladolid, with more than 520,000 inhabitants, elects 15 procurators, that is, around one procurator for every 35,000 inhabitants.
This distribution means that the vote in the most depopulated provinces has greater relative weight in parliamentary representation, a factor that influences autonomous politics and explains the importance that issues such as depopulation, services in rural areas, or territorial connectivity acquire in electoral campaigns.
Campaigns town to town
The population dispersion of the region forces parties to maintain a strong territorial presence. In Castile and León, it is not enough to win in the big cities. The sum of thousands of small municipalities can tip the final result, which is why it is common to see candidates touring very small villages where barely a few dozen people live.
The coexistence of thousands of tiny villages and a few larges cities turns Castilla y León into one of the most analyzed European territories by demographers and political scientists.