¿Para qué sirven los archivos históricos provinciales?

The first goal of this paper is studying the Provincial Historical Archives’ role inside the Spanish archival systems; the second goal is to propose two possible ways of action to ensure they will remain useful to society in the medium or long term. For the first goal, their number, functions according both the state and regional legislation and two specific aspects are analyzed, as they are the volume of documentation stocked and their participation on in the document assessment bodies. Regarding the second goal, there is a double course of action: the deepening in their cultural role and the improvement of the attention to fonds not coming from the official bodies.