Perhaps I am biased being Norwegian, but the obvious countries to compare to here is Sweden and Norway. Norway was until fairly recently (1905) part of Sweden,

Perhaps I am biased being Norwegian, but the obvious countries to compare to here is Sweden and Norway. Norway was until fairly recently (1905) part of Sweden, and like Catalonia we had great levels of autonomy, our own parliament and democratic elections. Like Catalonia we also are culturally very similar to Sweden. Certainly more so than Denmark. Like Catalonia we had not been an independent country for a very long time. In fact Norway existed as an independent country so far back that Spain didn't even exist as a country then. Like Catalonia, when Spain gained its independence it had not previously existed as an independent country. The same could be said about the Netherlands. Netherlands like Catalonia was also once part of Spain. Until it declared independence from Spain, it had never existed as a country. In fact this has been a problem for dutch identity, in that there really is no clear way to identify dutch national identity before independence from Spain. Which I thing brings me to the point, that ultimately it is about what people feel themselves. Despite not having been independent for almost 600 years, Norwegians still felt like they were a different people than Swedes or Danes.