At the social level, in the late nineteenth century lived in Barcelona the first person the proliferation of new forms of life, leisure and social relationships they had in sport and physical activity its best. In the last years of the century the city saw the birth of a large number of swimming clubs, tennis or football, which will be very important in the twentieth century in the social life of Barcelona and the outreach of the city. Clubs like Barcelona Football Club (founded 1899), the RCD Spanish (founded in 1900), Real Club de Tenis Barcelona Barcelona Swimming Club quickly gained great popularity in the city, Barcelona became the great capital Spanish sport of the early twentieth century.
However, at the political level, the end of the century was a turbulent time of great turmoil and social: it strengthened the Catalan, the Catalan newspaper published by Valenti Almirall (1879), the holding in 1880 of Prime Congrés Catalanista, delivery in 1885 to King Alfonso XII greuges Memorial (Memorial of grievances), the foundation in 1887 of the Lliga de Catalunya, in 1891 the Unió Catalanista and finally, in 1901, the Regionalist League of Enric Prat de la Riba. This political tendency was disliked by the conservative Spanish and especially the army, in 1905 a group of officers raided the headquarters of the newspaper La Veu satirical weekly and Cu-Cut! and instead of being reprimanded for their actions outside the social order, the central government suspended constitutional guarantees Cataluña.28
Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth riots occurred and proliferated conducting bombings: the September 24, 1893 an anarchist attack on General Martinez Campos, who was injured, while one policeman died. The attacker, Pauli Pallas, was shot, a fact which involved retaliation of another anarchist Santiago Salvador Franch, the November 7, 1893 threw a bomb inside the Teatro del Liceo, causing 20 deaths. Similarly, the June 7, 1896, the anarchist Thomas Ascheri exploded a bomb in the Corpus Christi procession, with a score of six dead.

Another factor for consideration at the end of the century was population growth: it grew from 272,481 inhabitants in 1887 to 533,000 in 1900, a fact due to the increase of immigration because of the labor demand for the Universal Exhibition. In 1897, by a royal order of April 27, Barcelona was annexed six neighboring towns, until then separate: Sants, Les Corts, Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, Gràcia, Sant Andreu de Palomar and Sant Martí de Provençals. Similarly, in 1904 it was annexed a new independent municipality: Horta. Finally, in 1921 joined Sarrià. Also noteworthy is the development of the mountain of Tibidabo from 1901. In total, the municipality increased from 15.5 to 77.8 km2, a population at the turn of the century close to 750,000 habitantes.29
The annexation of the new municipalities raised the need for a plan of links from the city, which went to tender in 1903, being won by the French urbanist Léon Jaussely. The plan Jaussely-made part-planned a round belts and open green spaces, guidelines that shaped the urban expansion of Barcelona in the twentieth century.