The geographical distribution of economic activity and industry in Spain. An analysis at the scale of judicial district based in the Census of 1860

During the second half of the XIX century, Spain, suffered from economic and social renovations, specially linked with it first steps of the modern economic growth. This transformations, progressively, and after overcoming lots of difficulties, will led the country into an “industrialized economy”; although this changes will also generate big gaps in the economic growth rates of the different regions that conforms the country. To adequately understand this process we consider essential to analyze the socio-economic situation of the population in its beginning. With this goal in mind we have examine and used the “Profesiones, artes y oficios” in the 1860 census, which have a very low aggregation level, the judicial district. In this sense, we will contribute with information in a completely new level of geographical and sectorial, with the judicial district as spatial unit of analysis.