Evidence status: DOCUMENTED

A crowd packs tightly into a town square.

People climb onto shoulders.

Then more people climb onto them.

Then children climb higher still.

At the top, a small child raises a hand.

The tower is complete.

This is not circus.

It is castells.

The Short Answer

Catalonia's famous human towers — castells — developed in the late eighteenth century from festive dances known as the Ball de Valencians.

Those dances ended with participants constructing a small human tower.

In and around Valls, in the Camp de Tarragona, the tower became increasingly important until it effectively separated from the dance and became its own competitive tradition.

Rival groups began trying to construct taller and more difficult formations.

Over two centuries later, castells remain a major symbol of Catalan community culture.

UNESCO added them to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, emphasising their role in social cohesion, solidarity and cultural identity.

What We Know

The oldest evidence does not show modern ten-level towers suddenly appearing from nowhere.

It shows evolution.

According to the Generalitat de Catalunya's heritage service, eighteenth-century Ball de Valencians performances in the Tarragona region ended with human constructions two or three people high.

Gradually, the tower became the main attraction.

Once separated from the dance, it developed into the independent form now called castells.

Valls became central.

The local council describes the town as the “kilometre zero” of the casteller world.

By the early nineteenth century, rival groups were documented there.

Competition encouraged greater height and technical sophistication.

How It Became a Habit

Castells are built around collective organisation.

The huge base is the pinya.

Above it rises the tronc, the central structure.

The lighter upper levels culminate in the pom de dalt.

At the top, a small child known as the enxaneta completes the tower, traditionally signalling success by raising a hand before climbing down.

It is impossible for one star performer to build a castell.

Hundreds of people may contribute.

Some climb.

Some support.

Some absorb weight.

Some organise.

Some play the music.

That makes castells unusually good symbols of collective identity.

The Story Everyone Tells

To outsiders, the obvious explanation is often:

Catalans build towers because they are trying to build the tallest possible human structure.

That is only part of it.

Height matters.

Difficulty matters.

Competition matters.

But a castell is not merely a sporting record.

It belongs to the ritual life of festivals, town squares and colles castelleres — organised groups whose identity may be visible through the colour of their shirts.

UNESCO emphasises that castells provide participants with:

continuity,

social cohesion,

solidarity,

and a sense of belonging.

What the Evidence Actually Says

The historical development is relatively well documented.

The Generalitat traces castells to the eighteenth-century Ball de Valencians.

Valls documentation places the development of independent casteller groups around the end of that century and beginning of the nineteenth.

One Generalitat history notes a known performance in 1791 and an eight-level tower achieved in 1819.

The practice later declined and came close to disappearing in the early twentieth century before recovering strongly.

From the 1990s, castells entered another major period of expansion, with more groups, television coverage and increasingly ambitious constructions.

So:

DOCUMENTED: Modern castells evolved from the Ball de Valencians.

DOCUMENTED: The independent tradition developed particularly around Valls in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

DOCUMENTED: Rivalry between groups encouraged increasing height and difficulty.

DOCUMENTED: The practice declined and later revived.

DOCUMENTED: UNESCO inscribed castells as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010.

This is one of our customs where the documentary evidence is considerably stronger than the folklore.

Different Elsewhere

Catalan castells are not the world's only human-tower tradition.

The Valencian Muixeranga, which belongs to a related cultural history, still combines human formations with dance, costume and religious festivity.

Other parts of the world have their own human pyramid traditions.

That does not diminish the distinctiveness of castells.

It helps explain how a dance element involving bodies arranged vertically could eventually become a complete tradition in its own right.

Why It Stuck

There is a famous casteller phrase:

força, equilibri, valor i seny

Strength.

Balance.

Courage.

And good judgement.

But there is another requirement beneath all four:

trust.

The child at the top is standing there because hundreds of people underneath are doing exactly what they promised to do.

Few traditions make community quite so visible.

Related Curiosities

Why Do People Chase a Cheese Down a Hill?

Why Do People Dance Around a Maypole?

Why Do People Jump Over Babies in a Spanish Festival?

Why Do Spaniards Eat Twelve Grapes at Midnight on New Year’s Eve?

Sources & Further Reading

UNESCO — Human Towers — description of castell structure, cultural role and 2010 inscription.

Generalitat de Catalunya — Castells — history from the Ball de Valencians through decline and modern revival.

Ajuntament de Valls — Els Castells — Valls as the historic centre of the casteller tradition.

Generalitat de Catalunya — history of early castells — evidence for late-eighteenth-century development and early competitive towers.

Last checked: 19 September 2026