This is an institution that has existed in Spain since 1836.
It is the governing body of the province.
In uniprovincial Autonomous Communities (Madrid, Region of Murcia, Cantabria, Principality of Asturias, Navarre and La Rioja) there are no Provincial Councils because their competences are assumed by the Autonomous Community itself (Law 7/1985 of 2 April regulating the bases of the local regime and the statutes of these Autonomous Communities).
In the provinces and Historical Territories of the Basque Country (Araba/Álava, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia), the governing and administrative body is the Diputación Foral. Unlike the provincial councils, these are directly elected bodies (Law 1/1987 of 27 March on elections to the general assemblies of the historical territories of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa).
There are no provincial councils on the islands, because at the head of each island or grouping of islands there is an island council, the consell insularin the Balearic Islands and the cabildo insular in the Canary Islands.
Provincial Councils are indirectly elected bodies, as their composition is determined upon the basis of the results of the local elections in which the political representatives of the town and city councils are elected.
The special provisions for the election of provincial deputies are regulated by Organic Law 5/1985 of 19 June on the general electoral system.
The number of provincial deputies is determined by the number of inhabitants in each province, in accordance with a scale established in article 204 of the above-mentioned organic law:
| Deputies | |
|---|---|
| Up to 500,000 residents | 25 |
| From 500,001 to 1,000,000 | 27 |
| From 1,000,001 to 3,500,000 | 31 |
| 3,500,001 and above | 51 |
Once all the town and city councils have been constituted, the seats on the provincial councils are distributed for each jurisdiction, in accordance with the D’Hondt formula, among the political parties that have obtained a councillor in each jurisdiction, depending on the number of votes obtained by each. The provincial deputies corresponding to each political party are elected to each jurisdiction from among and by the councillors who belong to the municipalities comprising each district.
Similarly, in accordance with article 205(1) of Organic Law 5/1985 of 19 June on the general electoral system, the process of constituting the provincial councils must be postponed, if necessary, until all the contentious-electoral appeals against the announcements of the elected councillors in the province’s municipalities have been resolved.
In the event that new elections have to be called in any municipality in the province, either because no candidature has been submitted or because the process has been totally or partially annulled as a result of the corresponding contentious-electoral appeal, the constitution of the Provincial Council will not be postponed, although, in the event that, as a result of the holding of partial local elections, the allocation of seats on the Provincial Council is altered, the Area Electoral Boards will carry out the operations required to perform a new allocation.
Moreover, it is established that in municipalities with fewer than 250 inhabitants the number of votes to be taken into account for each candidature is obtained by dividing the sum of the votes obtained by each of its components by the number of candidates that form the corresponding list, up to a maximum of four. The resulting fractions are corrected by default.