Las consecuencias demográficas de la crisis filoxérica en la región vitícola del Penedès (Cataluña)

The dynamic expansion experienced by the Catalan viticulture in the nineteenth century was interrupted in the last years of the century by the arrival of phylloxera. This plague, coming from the American continent, ended the population growth had known these regions parallel with the expansion of the vineyard. The main objective of this article is to show some results on the most important consequences of phylloxera in the town of wine-growing areas in Catalonia: Penedes. On the one hand, using the data provided by the modern Civil Registration of a sample of 25 municipalities, our goal is to show the changes at this juncture of the wine crises occurred regarding the birth rate. On the other hand we analyze migratory processes that caused the crisis. For this, among other documents, we use census years 1897 and 1900, since in some cities and towns in the Penedes area, in these surveys the names of people who had left their population registration were recorded, and they reported the destination. This is a very good source of information for an approach to the management of migratory flows caused by the crisis in the Penedes.