Editing Basques (section)

===Population, main cities, and languages===
[[File:Olentzero, Beasain.jpg|thumb|[[Olentzero]] in [[Gipuzkoa]], Basque Country]]

There are 2,123,000 people living in the Basque Autonomous Community (279,000 in Alava, 1,160,000 in Biscay and 684,000 in Gipuzkoa). The most important cities in this region, which serve as the provinces' administrative centers, are [[Bilbao]] (in Biscay), [[San Sebastián]] (in Gipuzkoa), and [[Vitoria-Gasteiz]] (in Álava). The official languages are Basque and Spanish. Knowledge of Spanish is compulsory under the Spanish constitution (article no. 3), and knowledge and usage of Basque is a right under the Statute of Autonomy (article no. 6), so only knowledge of Spanish is virtually universal. Knowledge of Basque, after declining for many years during [[Spain under Franco|Franco's dictatorship]] owing to official persecution, is again on the rise due to favorable official language policies and popular support. Currently about 33 percent of the population in the Basque Autonomous Community speaks Basque.

Navarre has a population of 601,000; its administrative capital and main city, also regarded by many nationalist Basques as the Basques' historical capital, is Pamplona (''Iruñea'' in modern Basque). Only Spanish is an official language of Navarre, and the Basque language is only co-official in the province's northern region, where most Basque-speaking Navarrese are concentrated.

About a quarter of a million people live in the [[French Basque Country]]. Nowadays Basque-speakers refer to this region as ''Iparralde'' (Basque for North), and to the Spanish provinces as ''Hegoalde'' (South). Much of this population lives in or near the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz (BAB) urban belt on the coast (in Basque these are ''Baiona'', ''Angelu'' and ''Miarritze''). The Basque language, which was traditionally spoken by most of the region's population outside the BAB urban zone, is today rapidly losing ground to French. The French Basque Country's lack of self-government within the French state is coupled with the absence of official status for the Basque language in the region. Attempts to introduce bilingualism in local administration have so far met direct refusal from French officials.