On the other hand, some autonomous communities are new creations. For example, autonomy was granted to Cantabria and La Rioja, both of which were historically part of Castile. Despite the lack of historical basis for both communities, and the fact that the Spanish government favored their integration in the larger Castile-León, the local population overwhelmingly supported the new entities. In Cantabria, one of the leading intellectual figures in 19th-century Spain, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, had already rejected a "Castilian" identity for his region as far back as 1877, instead favouring integration with its western neighbour, Asturias: