Plaça de Catalunya is a central square in Barcelona, one of the city's nerve centres. It covers an area of 5 hectares.

It is the meeting point between the old city centre and the Eixample. It is the starting point for important city thoroughfares such as the Rambla, Passeig de Gràcia, Rambla de Catalunya, the Rondas de la Universitat and Rondas de Sant Pere, and Carrer de Pelayo, as well as Avinguda de Portal de l'Àngel, the city's main shopping street and the former gateway to the city walls.

Until the walls were demolished, the space currently occupied by the square was an esplanade on the outskirts of the city located just in front of one of the main gates, from which roads led to the surrounding towns. This made the site an ideal location for open-air markets, and made it an important point of city life.

Subsequently, the walls were demolished and construction began on the Ensanche designed by Ildefonso Cerdá. Cerdá's urban plan did not include a square where Plaça de Catalunya now stands, since according to his plan the Gothic quarter, like the other nuclei of the old towns on the Barcelona plain, were to be relegated to the suburbs, The new centre was to be central and well communicated, such as Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, which Cerdá designed to be the new epicentre, right at the crossroads of the city's main thoroughfares, Avinguda Diagonal, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes and Avinguda Meridiana.

Unlike the Cerdá plan, the Rovira Plan of 1859, the one favoured by the City Council and the city's bourgeoisie, did envisage a large square at this point. The inertia of the use given to this space, combined with the fact that what was to become the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes was only a wasteland far from any construction, led the city to occupy the site of the Plaça de Catalunya, which theoretically should have been buildable, with cafés, theatres and fairground huts.

The square is also notable for the numerous sculptures by important artists exhibited along its perimeter, including the Goddess by Josep Clarà, Barcelona by Frederic Marès and the Pastor by Pablo Gargallo, as well as works by Josep Llimona, Enrique Casanovas, etc., and the monument to Francesc Macià by Josep Maria Subirachs, a much more recent work (1991).