| The Kingdom of Spain or Spain (Spanish: Reino
de España or España; Catalan: Regne d'Espanya;
Basque: Espainiako Erresuma; Galician: Reino da España; is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with
Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees
mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the
Atlantic Ocean, the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in the north of Africa, and a number of minor uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, such as the Chafarine islands, the "rocks" (es: peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Parsley Island.
Spain has been a constitutional monarchy and a
parliamentary democracy since the Spanish Constitution was approved in 1978. Strong postwar economic growth and an expansion in trade following membership of the European Union in 1986 made the country's economy the tenth largest in the
world in 2002. Life expectancy, public transportation, sanitation, infrastructure, and health care are first-rate, although the
GDP per capita remains at 87% of that of the four leading European economies.
History
Main article: History of Spain
Prehistory
The original peoples of the Iberian peninsula (in the sense
that they are not known to have come from elsewhere), consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of
Iberians. This may have included the Basques, the only pre-Celtic people in Iberia surviving to the present day as a separate ethnic group. The most important culture of this period is that of the city of
Tartessos. Beginning in the 9th century BC, Celtic tribes entered the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees and settled throughout the
peninsula, becoming the Celt-Iberians.
The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the
Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.
Around 1,100 BC Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades
(modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC the first Greek colonies, such
as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south
coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC the Carthaginians
arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was
Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).
Roman Empire
The Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century B.C., and annexed it
under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and
the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania.
Some of Spain's present languages, religion, and laws originate from this Roman period.
Medieval Spain
As the Roman empire declined, the Suebi, Vandals and Alans each took control of part of Hispania. In the 5th century AD the Visigoths, a
romanized germanic tribe, conquered all of Hispania and established a relatively stable kingdom lasting until 711, when it fell to an invasion by Islamic North African Moors and became part of the expanding Umayyad
empire, under the name of Al-Andalus. When the Umayyad empire gave way to the
Abbaside empire, an Umayyad exile established the Caliphate of Cordoba,
effectively making Al-Andalus independent from the empire.
Modern Spain began to take form during the Reconquista, the struggle
between the Christian kingdoms arising in the northern regions left
unconquered by the Moors and the Muslim
kingdoms into which Al-Andalus eventually split.
Three states came to dominate Christian Spain: Portugal, Aragon and Castile. During the last half of the XV century two
heirs of Castile married, Isabel with Fernando II of Aragon de Aragon and Juana la Beltraneja with
Alfonso V of Portugal. After a sucession war, Isabel I of Castile (Isabel La Católica) and Fernando II of Aragon (Fernando el Católico or Ferran el Catòlic)
overtook the kingdom, and Portugal remained separate. In 1492, Granada, the last of the Moorish kingdoms, was conquered by the Catholic monarchs,
The kingdom of the Catholic monarchs then imposed the Christian religion; in 1492, Isabel and Fernando ordered the expulsion
of all Jews from their dominions, having imposed physical segregation in 1480 (two years
after the establishment of the Inquisition) and, in 1502, Muslims were forced
to convert to Christianity or be banished.
Just before the conquest of Granada, Isabel funded Christopher Columbus in his attempts to reach Asia through a
western route across the Atlantic Ocean - resulting in the "discovery"
of the "New World". In 1492, Granada was taken and America discovered.
In 1499, about 50,000 Moors in Granada were coerced into taking part in a mass baptism. During the uprising that followed,
people who refused the choices of baptism or deportation to Africa, were systematically eliminated. What followed was a mass flight of Moors, Jews and
Gitanos from the city of Granada and the surrounding villages to the mountain regions
(and their hills) and the rural country. It was in this socially and economically difficult situation that the musical cultures
of the Moors, Jews and Gitanos started to form the basics of flamenco music.
Renaissance in Spain
By 1512, most of the kingdoms of present-day Spain were politically unified, although
not as a modern centralized state. The grandson of Isabel and Fernando, Carlos I, extended his crown to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. And the unification of Iberia was complete when Carlos I's son, Felipe II, became King of Portugal in 1580, as well as of the other Iberian Kingdoms (collectively
known as "Spain" since this moment).
During the 16th century,with Carlos I and Felipe II, Spain became the
most powerful European nation, its territory covering most of South and
Central America, the Iberian peninsula, southern Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. This was later known as the Spanish Empire.
It was also the wealthiest nation but the uncontrolled influx of goods and minerals from Spanish colonisation of the
Americas resulted in rampant inflation and economic depression.
In 1640, under Felipe
IV, the centralist policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares provoked wars in Portugal and
Catalonia. Portugal became an independent kingdom again and Catalonia enjoyed
some years of French-supported independence but was quickly returned to the Spanish Crown.
A series of long and costly wars and revolts followed in the 17th
century, beginning a steady decline of Spanish power in Europe. Controversy over succession to the throne consumed the
country during the first years of the 18th century (see War of the Spanish Succession). It was only after
this war ended and a new dynasty was installed - the French Bourbons (see House of Bourbon) - that a centralized Spanish state was established and the first Borbon king Felipe V in 1707 canceled the Aragon court and
changed the title of king of Castilla and Aragon for the current king of Spain.
French domination
Spain was occupied by Napoleon in the early 1800s, but the Spaniards raised in arms. After the War of Independence (1808-1812), a series of revolts and armed
conflicts between Liberals and supporters of the ancien régime lasted throughout much of the 19th
century, complicated by a dispute over dynastic succession by the Carlists
which led to three civil wars. After that, Spain was briefly a Republic, from 1871 to 1873, a year in which a series of coups reinstalled the monarchy.
In the meantime, Spain lost most of its colonies in the Americas during the
19th century, a trend which ended with the loss of Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American
War of 1898.
20th century
The 20th century initially brought little peace; colonisation of
Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea was
attempted as a substitute for the loss of the Americas. A period of dictatorial rule (1923-1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political
autonomy to the Basque Country and Catalonia and gave voting rights to women. However, with increasing political polarisation and pressure from all
sides, coupled with growing and unchecked political violence, the Republic ended with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936.
Following the victory of the nationalist forces in 1939, General Francisco Franco ruled a nation
exhausted politically and economically until his death in 1975.
After World War II, being one of few surviving fascist regimes in Europe, Spain was politically and economically isolated and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became
strategically important for U.S. president Eisenhower to establish a military
presence in the Iberian peninsula. This opening to Spain was aided by Franco's rabid anti-communism.
In the 1960s, more than a decade later than other western European countries, Spain
began to enjoy economic growth and gradually transformed into a modern industrial economy with a thriving tourism sector. Growth continued well into the 1970s, with Franco's
government going to great lengths to shield the Spanish people from the effects of the oil crisis.
Upon the death of the dictator General Franco in November 1975, his personally-designated heir Prince Juan Carlos assumed the position of king and head of state. He played a key role in guiding Spain further in its growth into a modern democratic state,
notably in opposing an attempted coup d'état in 1981. Spain joined NATO in 1982 and
became a member of the European Union in 1986.
With the approval of the Spanish
Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, the old historic
nationalities — Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia— were given far-reaching autonomy, which was then soon extended to all Spanish regions, resulting in one of the most
decentralized territorial organizations in Western Europe.
- See also: List of Spanish monarchs, Kings of Spain family tree, List of Prime Ministers of Spain
Politics
Main article: Politics of Spain
Spain is a constitutional monarchy, with a
hereditary monarch and a bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generales or
National Assembly. The executive branch consists of a Council of
Ministers presided over by the President of Government (comparable to a prime minister), proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative
elections.
The legislative branch is made up of the Congress of
Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) with 350 members, elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional
representation to serve four-year terms, and a Senate or Senado with 259 seats
of which 208 are directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to also serve four-year
terms.
Spain is, at present, what is called a State of Autonomies, formally unitary
but, in fact, functioning as a Federation of Autonomous Communities, each one with
different powers (for instance, some have their own educational and health systems, others do not) and laws. There are some
problems with this system, since some autonomous governments (especially those dominated by nationalist parties) are seeking a
more federalist—or even confederate—kind of relationship with
Spain, while the Central Government is trying to restrict what some see as excessive autonomy of some autonomous communities
(e.g. Basque Country and Catalonia).
Terrorism is a problem of present-day Spain, since ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) is
trying to achieve Basque independence through violent means, including bombings and murders. Although Basque Autonomous
government does not condone any kind of violence, the different approaches to the problem are a source of tension between Central
and Basque governments.
On February 20th 2005, Spain became the first country to allow its people to vote on the European Union constitution that was
signed in October 2004. The rules states that if any country rejects the constitution then the constitution will be declared
void. The final result was very strongly in affirmation of the constitution, making Spain the first and so far only country to
approve the constitution.
Administrative divisions
Administratively, Spain is divided into 50 provinces,
grouped into 17 autonomous
communities and 2 autonomous cities with high degree of autonomy.
Autonomous communities
Main article: Autonomous
communities of Spain
Spain consists of 17 autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas) and 2 autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas;
Ceuta and Melilla).
The Spanish constitution recognises historic nationalities, but does not grant a special status for them. Navarre and the Basque Country have a special tax revenue system.
Provinces
Main article: Provinces of Spain
The Spanish kingdom is also divided in 50 provinces (provincias).
Autonomous communities group provinces (for instance, Extremadura is made of
two provinces: Cáceres and Badajoz). The autonomous communities of Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarre, Murcia, and Madrid are each composed of a single province. Traditionally, provinces are usually subdivided into historic regions
or comarcas (main article: Comarcas of Spain).
Places of sovereignty
There are also five places of sovereignty (plazas de
soberanía) on and off the African coast: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla are administered as autonomous cities, an
intermediate status between cities and communities; the islands of the Islas Chafarinas, Peñón de Alhucemas,
and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera are under
direct Spanish administration.
The Canary islands, Ceuta
and Melilla, although not officially historic communities, enjoy a special
status.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Spain
Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada. Running
from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tajo, the Ebro, the Duero, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir. Alluvial plains are found
along the coast, the largest of which is that of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia,
in the east there are alluvial plains with medium rivers like Segura, Júcar and Turia. Spain is bound to the east by Mediterranean
Sea (containing the Balearic Islands), to the north by the
Bay of Biscay and to its west by the Atlantic Ocean, where the Canary Islands off
the African coast are found.
Spain's climate can be divided in four areas:
- The Mediterranean: mostly temperate in the eastern and southern part of the country; rainy seasons are spring and autumn.
Mild summers with pleasant temperatures. Hot records: Murcia 47,2º, Malaga 44,2º, Valencia 42,5º, Alicante 41,4º, Palma of
Mallorca 40,6º, Barcelona 39,8º.
- Inner spain: Very cold winters (frequent snow in the north) and hot summers. Hot records: Sevilla 47,0º, Cordoba
46,6º, Badajoz 45,0º, Zaragoza 42,6º, Madrid 42,2º, Valladolid 40,2º.
- Northern Atlantic coast: precipitations mostly on winter, with mild summers (slightly cold). Hot records: Bilbao
42,0º, La Coruña 37,6º, Gijón 36,4º.
- The Canary Islands: subtropical weather, with mild temperatures (18º to 24 º celsius) throughout the year.
Biggest metropolitan areas
- Madrid 5,603,285
- Barcelona 4,667,136
- Valencia 1,465,423
- Sevilla 1,294,081
- Malaga 1,019,292
For a more complete list, see List
of cities in Spain
Territorial disputes
Spain has called for the return of Gibraltar, a tiny British possession on its southern coast. It changed hands during the War of the Spanish Succession in 1704. The most recent talks dealt with the idea of "total shared sovereignty" over Gibraltar,
subject to a constitutional referendum by Gibraltarians, who have expressed opposition to any form of cession to Spain. The talks
have been frozen, after the result of a referendum in Gibraltar where 98% of the people opposed them. See Gibraltar for more information.
Morocco claims the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the uninhabited Vélez, Alhucemas, Chafarinas, and Perejil ("Parsley") islands, all on the northern coast of Africa.
Economy
Main article: Economy of Spain
Spain's mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 87% that of the four leading West European economies. The center-right government of former President Aznar
successfully worked to gain admission to the first group of countries launching the European single currency, the euro, on 1
January 1999. The Aznar administration continued to advocate liberalization,
privatization, and deregulation of the economy and introduced some tax reforms to that end.
Unemployment fell steadily under the Aznar administration but remains high
at 11.7%. Growth of 2.4% in 2003 was satisfactory given the background of a faltering European economy. Incoming President
Rodríguez Zapatero, whose party won the election three days after the Madrid train
bombings in March, plans to reduce government intervention in business, combat tax fraud, and support innovation, research and
development, but also intends to reintroduce labor market regulations that had been scrapped by the Aznar government. Adjusting
to the monetary and other economic policies of an integrated Europe - and reducing unemployment - will pose challenges to Spain
over the next few years.
Languages
Main article: Demographics of Spain
The Spanish Constitution, although affirming the sovereignty of the Spanish Nation, recognises historical nationalities.
The Castilian-derived Spanish (called both Español
and Castellano in the language itself) is the official language throughout Spain, but other regional languages are also spoken. Without mentioning them by name, the
Spanish Constitution recognizes the
possibility of regional languages being coofficial in their respective autonomous communities. The following languages are
coofficial with Spanish according to the appropriate Autonomy Statutes.
Catalan, Galician, Aranese (Occitan) and Spanish (Castilian) are
all descended from Latin and have their own dialects, some championed as separate
languages by their speakers (the Valencià of València, a dialect of Catalan, is one example).
There are also some other surviving Romance minority languages: Asturian, in Asturias and parts of Leon, Zamora and Salamanca, and the Extremaduran in
Caceres and Salamanca, both
descendents of the historical Astur-Leonese dialect; the Aragonese or fabla in part of Aragon; the xalimegian or
a fala in Extremadura; and some Portuguese
dialectal towns in Extremadura and Castile-Leon. However, unlike Catalan, Galician, and Basque, these do not have any official
status.
Berber language is spoken among Muslims in Ceuta and Melilla.
In the touristic areas of the Mediterranean costas and the islands, German and
English are spoken by tourists, foreign residents and tourism workers.
Many linguists claim that most of the Spanish language variants spoken in Latin America (Mexican, Argentinian, Columbian, etc. variants) descended from the Spanish spoken in
southwestern Spain (Andalusia and Extremadura).
Identities
Spain is considered by many, including a large part of Spanish population, to be a group of nations unified under a single
State, much like Belgium, Switzerland or the United Kingdom. Despite this, the
policy of many Spanish governments has led to a "Spanish nationhood" which is the one people identify with Spain
internationally.
The Spanish Constitution of 1978
recognizes historic entities ("nationalities", not "nations") such as Catalonia,
Galicia, the Basque Country or Navarre. In the 19th and 20th centuries,
similar recognition was rare and short-lived.
But Spain's identity is, in fact, an overlap of different national identities, some of them even conflicting.
Castile is considered to be by many the "core" of Spain. However, this may just be a reflection of the fact that the Castilian
national identity was the first one to be quashed by the Spanish Empire in the revolt of the Communards (comuneros). Today, Castilians generally
consider themselves to be Spanish first, with regional identity being of lesser importance.
The opposite is the case of Galicians, Asturians, Catalans and Basques, who quite frequently identify primarily with Galicia,
Asturias, Catalonia and the Basque Country first, with Spain only second, or even third, after Europe.
The situation is even more confusing, since there are regions with ambiguous identities, like Navarre, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, etc. There
has been a lot of internal migration (rural exodus) from regions like
Galicia, Andalusia and Extremadura to Madrid, Catalonia, Basque Country and the islands.
Until 1714, Spain was a loose confederation of kingdoms and statelets, under the same king, until King Philip V removed the autonomous status of the Aragonese crown. Moreover,
the creation of a unified state in the 19th and 20th centuries has lead to the present situation, apparently simple, but
sometimes extremely confusing. During the Second Spanish
Republic (1931-1936), the Basque and Catalan were
given limited self-government, which was lost after the Spanish Civil
War (1936-1939) and restored in 1978 during the transition to democracy.
Minority groups
The most important minority group in the country are the Gitanos. Other indigenous
minorities are Mercheros (or Quinquis) and Vaqueiros de
alzada.- The latter, meaning "Mountain cow-breeders" dwell in mountain ranges in the Principality of Asturias and have kept
historically apart from the valley dwellers. Foreign minorities include Arabs and Berbers mainly from Morocco and other countries of
North Africa; Asians from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam; and South Americans mainly from Ecuador and Colombia.
Religion
Roman Catholicism is, by far, the most popular religion in the
country, with four in five Spaniards (80%) self-identifying as Catholics. The next group (one in eight, or 12%) is represented by
atheists or agnostics. Minority
religions account for one in seventy (1.4%) of all Spaniards.
According to membership [1] (http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_jw.html), the second religion of Spain is the
organization of the Jehovah's Witnesses with 103,784 active
publishers; there are also many protestant branches, all of them with less than 50,000 members, and about 20,000 Mormons. Evangelism has been better received among Gypsies than among the general population; pastors have integrated flamenco music in their liturgy. Taken together, all self-described "evangelicals" slightly surpass Jehovah's
Witnesses in number.
The recent waves of immigration have led to an increasing number of Muslims, who
have about 800.000 members. Muslims were forcibly converted in 1492 and then expelled in the 16th century. Since the expulsion of
the Sephardim in 1492, Judaism was practically nonexistent until the 19th
century.
During the last thirty years, Spain is becoming a secularised society. The number of believers has decreased significantly and
for those who believe the degree of accordance and practice to their church is quite diverse.
According to the latest official poll
(CIS, 2002) (http://www.cis.es/Catalogo/Estudio.aspx?year=&barometro=&ultimosestudios=&tema=119&estudio=2170&cuestionario=2190&muestra=5485),
80% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholic, 12% as non-believer,
and 1% as other (the remaining 7% declined to state). Of the 1.4% identifying as other, 29% identified as Evangelical Christian, 26% as Jehovah's Witnesses and 3% as Muslim (the rest either mentioned
smaller religions or declined to state). According to the same poll, 73% believe in God, 14% don't and 12% are unsure (1%
declined to state). Additionally, according to this poll, only 41% believe in Heaven.
24% of the Spaniards think that the Bible is just a fable. Only 25% of Catholics go to church at least once a week.
According to the CIA World Factbook, 94% of Spaniards are
Roman Catholic. This is consistent with the Catholic Church's practice to claim all baptized as Catholic regardless of
self-identification, and with the CIS poll's finding that 91% to 96% of all parents are remembered as being catholics. Despite
only 80% of Spaniards self-describing as catholics, 94% report having baptized their children but only 79% being inclined to
baptize new children. 90% had a religious wedding.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Spain
International rankings
- The Economist Intelligence Unit's worldwide quality-of-life index
2005: Rank 10 out of 111 countries
Further reading
John Hickman and Chris Little, "Seat/Vote Proportionality in Romanian and Spanish Parliamentary Elections" Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Volume 2, Number 2, November
2000.
Miscellaneous topics
External links
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