In 1931, the Second Spanish Republic was established, and a new liberal constitution allowed the "regions" of Spain to attain self-government. It created the "autonomous region" as a first-order administrative division. Catalonia was the first to approve a Statute of Autonomy, later sanctioned by the Spanish Parliament. Its Generalitat, the Catalan institutions of government that operated since medieval times until the early eighteenth century, was restored. The Basque Country and Galicia each sought autonomy in 1936, but only the Statute of Autonomy of the first was approved before the Spanish Civil War erupted.