FrenchFrenchI. - Introduction. — II. - L'administration, titulaire du domaine public. — III. - Objet réel du domaine public. — IV. - Circonstances déterminantes du domaine public. — V. - Nature et régime juridique. — VI. - Bibliographie.by Dr. Aurelio GuaitaProfessor of Navarrese LegislationThe subject is dealt with under the three « classical » aspects of all juridical problems: written (or positive) law; legal doctrine; jurisprudence.The first legal text to mention public demesne in Spain is the Waterways Act of 1886, in which public demesne is identified with public use. This concept soon was adopted generally, and finally included in the Civil Code of 1889.Of modern instruments, mention should be made of the Local Government Act (revised) of 1955; the Local Corporation Act of the same year; the Guinea and African Territories Property (1949) decrees.Articles 338 to 345 of the Civil Code are the relevant basic texts (assets and the ownership thereof). Of territorial authorities, the State, Provinces and Municipalities exclusively are mentioned as possible owners of the public demesne. The so-called « lesser local corporations » (which may own roads, bridges and streets in the same way as municipalities) and the Colonial Administrations must nowadays be added to complete the list.A unique feature of Spanish law is that « institutional Administrations » are admittedly potential owners of the public demesne. This applies for instance to the National Patrimony, the Railways, the Forest lands. Private property, also when collectively owned, is excluded from the public demesne. As regards the great concessions, the concession-holder owns only operational rights privately, the demesne itself retaining its public character.Public demesne is doctrinally identified with public use of the property. Thus, according to authoritative opinion, this includes even non-physical assets, such as patents. Both Spanish legal doctrine and law take the broadest possible view as to the scope of public demesne, with an express « et alia » clause to every instance of nomenclature. This even goes as far as to specify « all other assets which are to serve for the operation of public or administrative services ». The one criterion is that the object must have public use as its destination.The public demesne, in Spain, is undoubtedly the property of an « administrative person ». And conversely, all the assets of the State (and its subordinate authority) belong to the public demesne, as the State has no privatim purposes. The author examines the rules for the utilisation of the public demesne by private parties, drawn up severally in each case according to its nature and merits. The article quotes chapter and verse on each point, and an extensive bibliography is appended.