Co-princes of Andorra in the context of "Heads of state"

Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, bordered by France to the north and Spain to the south. Believed to have been created by Charlemagne, Andorra was ruled by the count of Urgell until 988, when it was transferred to the Diocese of Urgell. The present principality was formed by a charter in 1278. It is currently headed by two co-princes: the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, Spain, and the president of France. Its capital and largest city is Andorra la Vella.

Andorra is the sixth-smallest state in Europe, with an area of 468 square kilometres (181 sq mi) and a population of approximately 87,486. The Andorran people are a Romance ethnic group closely related to Catalans. Andorra is the world's 16th-smallest country by land and 11th-smallest by population. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres (3,356 feet) above sea level. The official language is Catalan, but Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.

A sacerdotal state is a state whose head is also an ecclesiastical leader designated by a religious body. An example of this kind of state is the Vatican City: its heads of state, the popes of the Catholic Church, have governed papal lands distinct from secular authority since the establishment of the Papal States in the 8th century AD. Andorra operates under a semi-sacerdotal system, as one of its co-heads of state is the bishop of Urgell, while the other is the head of state of France. However unlike the Vatican, the co-princes of Andorra are ceremonial and not closely involved in the government.

In the past, bishops commonly assumed temporal as well as spiritual authority and ruled as prince-bishops. This occurred, for example, in the Holy Roman Empire, where three of the seven imperial electors were prince-archbishops (those of Trier, Mainz and Cologne). After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia certain prince-bishoprics became bi-confessional and alternated between governance by Catholic bishops and by Protestant administrators.

Pere d'Urtx (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈuɾtʃ] OORTCH) was Bishop of Urgell from 1269 to 1293. He became the first Episcopal Co-Prince of Andorra when he signed the paréage establishing joint-sovereignty over the territory with Roger-Bernard III, Count of Foix in 1278.

The paréage ended almost a century of conflict over the territory between successive Bishops of Urgell, on the one hand, and Viscounts of Castellbò and Counts of Foix, on the other, and effectively established the modern state of Andorra. He was archdeacon of Prats and became the bishop of Urgell on 3 November 1269. He attended the provincial councils of 1274, 1279 and 1292.

Eduard Ibáñez i Pulido (born 14 May 1969) is a Spanish civil servant and lawyer. He has served as the personal representative of the episcopal co-prince of Andorra, initially for Joan Enric Vives i Sicília and currently for Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat, since November 2023.

A reign is the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Andorra), of a people (e.g., the Franks, the Zulus) or of a spiritual community (e.g., Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, Nizari Ismailism). In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies (e.g., Holy Roman Empire) there have been no limits on the duration of a sovereign's reign or incumbency, nor is there a term of office. Thus, a reign usually lasts until the monarch dies, unless the monarchy itself is abolished or the monarch abdicates or is deposed.

In elective monarchies, there may be a fixed period of time for the duration of the monarch's tenure in office (e.g., Malaysia).