Andorran Place Names Reveal 'Fossil Toponymy' of Lost Farming Era

Historian David Mas, an expert in vernacular architecture, has identified place names like Prat del Roure, Prada Casadet, and Prat del Rull in Andorra's central valley as "fossil toponymy." In comments to the Andorran News Agency (ANA), he said these names preserve traces of an agricultural landscape that shaped the Principality until the mid-20th century, before urbanisation overtook it.

Andorra's economy once centred on two main land types: fields near villages for growing cereals, legumes, potatoes, or tobacco; and meadows, or *prats de dall*, in remote areas or secondary valleys. Mas explained that these meadows supplied winter fodder for livestock, with grass harvested by sickle and stored in cabins or threshing floors to feed large animals through the cold months.

That arrangement kept cropland close to settlements and pastures farther out. But 20th-century changes—mechanisation, the decline of mule breeding, and the shift to a market economy—flipped the pattern. A key 1940 agreement between Andorran farmers and dairies in La Seu d'Urgell sped up the transition, moving households from a couple of cows for ploughing to herds of around a dozen for milk production. Many cereal fields then turned into grazing pastures.

As a result, today's place names in the central valley capture this later phase of farming, not the original one, Mas noted. Valley-floor "meadows" amount to a relatively modern designation. This fossilised vocabulary now sits amid urban development, where land's value comes from real estate potential rather than the grass it yields.

For residents who witnessed the shift, the historian observed, it unfolded gradually yet profoundly, often evoking a sense of sadness over the loss of terrain vital to the nation's livelihood.