Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona

Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona (Barcelona Metropolitan Demarcation), also referred to as the vegueria of Barcelona, is one of the nine regions (vegueries) of Catalonia.

Located in the centre of the Catalan Pre-Coastal Range, it is the most populated region, with 4,916,847 inhabitants as of 2022.

The region includes the counties of Baix Llobregat, Barcelonès, Maresme, Vallès Occidental and Vallès Oriental. Within Catalonia, it borders to the south with Camp de Tarragona, to the west with Central Catalonia and the north with the vegueria of Girona.

Its capital city is Barcelona.

Characteristics
The region was defined in 1987 in the Territorial Planning Laws approved by the Parliament of Catalonia. It currently comprises Barcelona and its area of economic and market influence. Alt Penedès and Garraf were initially part of it as well, but were integrated into the new Penedès region in 2017.

In April 2008, the Department of Territorial Policy and Public Works of the Generalitat de Catalunya presented the preliminary draft of the Barcelona Metropolitan Territorial Plan, which delimits the areas of scenic and strategic interest that are to be preserved and aims to promote a quality road and rail network.

Demography
The region's most populated cities (100,000+ inhabitants) are Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona, Terrassa, Sabadell, Mataró and Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

Transport
Since 1997, the region's transport is coordinated by the Metropolitan Transport Authority, with the aims of planning the infrastructure and services, managing relations with transport operators, handling the financing of the transport system and setting fares.

Television
In June 1980, the town of Cardedeu, in Vallès Oriental county, began broadcasts of Ràdio Televisió Cardedeu, a community television channel that would be the first channel to broadcast entirely in Catalan, as well as the first local channel in Catalonia and in the whole of Spain.

Nowadays, the region holds TVC's studios, in Sant Joan Despí (Baix Llobregat), as well as RTVE's Catalan studios, located in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Vallès Occidental).

As far as programming exclusive to the region is concerned, six different local multiplexes are active. In contrast to other regions of Catalonia, there are no local channels broadcast for the whole Barcelona region, but rather for each of its counties. Below are the main television channels broadcasting in each county as of April 2024.