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The people of Catalonia in north-eastern Spain are voting in a disputed and non-binding poll on independence. The Spanish judiciary has ruled the vote unconstitutional but Catalan leader Artur Mas warned against any attempt to disrupt it. Spain's constitutional court suspended earlier plans for a referendum on secession.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the vote would have no effect and urged the region to return to "sanity".

Voters will be asked whether they want a Catalan state and whether that state should be independent.

More than 40,000 volunteers are helping to set up and run the informal exercise.

As of 13:00 local time (11:00am GMT), 1.1 million people had voted, according to the Catalan government.

Catalonia is a wealthy region of 7.5 million people and contributes more to the Spanish economy than it gets back through central government funds. Economic and cultural grievances have fuelled Catalan nationalism.

The BBC's Europe correspondent Chris Morris says many Catalans have always felt that they do not quite fit in a unitary state. He says there is a long history of support for winning independence from Spain, or at least much greater autonomy within it....

Many Catalans [who, BTW, speak a separate language- SIGNY] think of themselves as a separate nation from the rest of Spain. This feeling is fed by memories of the Franco dictatorship, which attempted to suppress Catalan identity...

Catalonia adopted a charter in 2006 giving it "nation" status but this was overruled by the Constitutional Court in 2010.

Independence supporters hope that a strong vote of support will put more pressure on the central government to open negotiations over more tax and political autonomy, ultimately leading to a full-blown independence referendum. They say that support from more than 1.5 million Catalans would add weight to their cause.

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