Navarre

Made famous by Hemmingway, who wrote about the San Fermin bull running, this is one of Spain's most varied regions.

Typical farm house

5 times Tour de France champion, Miguel Indurain is from this region.

For more on the Basque problem click here
For more on the Opus Dei and Spanish Catholicism in general: click here

Population: (1/2008) 619,114 of whom 64,518 (10.4%) are foreigners

Web links of interest:

University
San Fermin festival
Tourism in general
BBC /AFP /Getty images of the San Fermin bull running

The Churches

Membership: (PTL 1997) 440
Churches: 10
Towns with over 5,000 inhabitants and no evangelical church: 9 (Decisión 2008)
List of unevangelised towns
Proportion of inhabitants to believer: 1,218 This is the lowest percentage of evangelicals for any region or even province in Spain. It has been particularly difficult to reach the Basque speaking people in the north of the region. The churches are almost exclusively in Pamplona, the capital and Tudela, in the south.

Some Bible translation work is being done in a dialect of the Basque language in the French part of Navarre by a Spanish worker of SIL: (Site in Spanish).

Historic comment

The ancient kingdom of Navarre spread across the Pyrenees. In the early sixteenth century it was effectively split, the northerly, smaller part becoming part of France. This region was birthplace of Henry of Navarre, born protestant later converted to Catholicism in order to become king of France and author of the Night of St. Bartholomew, when the French Huguenots came under persecution. It was also home to Juana, the daughter of the "Catholic Kings" Ferdinand and Isabella and mother of Charles V. It is reputed that she was mad, but at least fancied that she might have become a believer at the very outset of the Reformation and therefore locked away by her family who were set on returning their empire to the spiritual rule of Rome. Navarre remains a very Catholic region.