Crown of Aragon

The Crown of Aragon was a permanent union of multiple titles and states in the hands of the King of Aragon. At the height of its power by the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain, Southwestern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean Sea as far as Greece. The component realms of the Crown were not united politically except at the level of the king. Put in contemporary terms, it functioned more as a confederacy rather than as a single country. In this sense, the larger Crown of Aragon must not be confused with one of its constituent parts, the Kingdom of Aragon, from which it takes its name. In 1479, a new dynastic union merged the Crown of Aragon with the Crown of Castile, creating what would become the Kingdom of Spain.