Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de Espana),is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. With an area of 504,030 km?, Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France.Because of its location, the territory of Spain was subject to many external influences, often simultaneously, since prehistoric times and through the dawn of Spain as a country. Conversely, the country itself has been an important source of influence to other regions, chiefly during the Modern Era, when it became a global empire that has left a legacy of over 400 million Spanish speakers today.Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy.It is a developed country with the ninth or tenth largest economy by nominal GDP, and high living standards (Spain has the 15th highest HDI).It is a member of the United Nations, European Union, NATO, OECD, and WTO.
Etymology
The true origins of the name Espana and its cognates "Spain" and "Spanish" are disputed.The ancient Roman name for Iberia, Hispania, may derive from poetic use of the term Hesperia to refer to Spain, reflecting Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia) and Spain, being still further west, as Hesperia ultima.It may also be a derivation of the Punic Ispanihad meaning "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean; Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet.There are also claims that Espana derives from the Basque word Ezpanna meaning "edge" or "border", another reference to the country being at the extreme southwest of the European continent.The humanist Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". According to a new research by Jesus Luis Cunchillos published in 2000 with the name of Gramatica fenicia elemental (Basic phoenician grammar),the root of the term span is spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged".
Geography
At 504,782 km2 (194,897 sq mi), Spain is the world's 51st-largest country.It is some 47,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) smaller than France and 81,000 km2 (31,000 sq mi)larger than the U.S. state of California.On the west, Spain borders Portugal; on the south, it borders Gibraltar (a British overseas territory) and Morocco, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla). On the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. Spain also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberania, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alboran, the "rocks" (penones) of Velez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. Along the Pyrenees in Catalonia, a small exclave town called Llivia is surrounded by France. The little Pheasant Island in the River Bidasoa is a Spanish-French condominium.Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tagus, the Ebro, the Duero, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir.
Climate
Due to Spain's geographical situation and orographic conditions, the climate is extremely diverse; discounting the mountain climate, it can be roughly divided into five areas:
-A Continental Mediterranean climate in the inland areas of the Peninsula (largest city, Madrid).
-An Oceanic climate in Galicia and the coastal strip near the Bay of Biscay or (largest city, Bilbao). This area is often called Green Spain.
-A Semiarid climate or arid Mediterranean in the southeast (largest city, Murcia).
-A Mediterranean climate region extends from the Andalusian plain along the southern and eastern coasts up to the Pyrenees, on the seaward side of the mountain ranges that run near the coast. Also in Ceuta and Melilla (largest city, Barcelona). Localized Subtropical climate areas exist in the coasts of Granada and Malaga (Costa Tropical).
-A Subtropical climate in the Canary Islands (largest city, Las Palmas).
-The rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain. It falls mainly in the northern mountains.
-Alluvial plains are found along the coast, the largest of which is that of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia.
Administrative divisions
The basic institutional law of the autonomous community is the Statute of Autonomy. The Statutes of Autonomy establish the denomination of the community according to its historical identity, the limits of their territories, the name and organization of the institutions of government and the rights they enjoy according the constitution.The government of all autonomous communities must be based on a division of powers comprising:a Legislative Assembly whose members must be elected by universal suffrage according to the system of proportional representation and in which all areas that integrate the territory are fairly represented;a Government Council, with executive and administrativefunctions headed by a president, elected by the Legislative Assembly and nominated by the King of Spain;a Supreme Court of Justice, under the Supreme Court of the State, which head the judicial organization within the autonomous community.Besides Andalusia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, which identified themselves as nationalities, other communities have also taken that denomination in accordance to their historical regional identity, such as the Valencian Community,the Canary Islands,the Balearic Islands,and Aragon.The autonomous communities have wide legislative and executive autonomy, with their own parliaments and regional governments. The distribution of powers may be different for every community, as laid out in their Statutes of Autonomy. There used to be a clear de facto distinction between so called "historic" communities (Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia) and the rest.The "historic" ones initially received more functions, including the ability of the regional presidents to choose the timing of the regional elections (as long as they happen no more than four years apart).As another example, the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia have full-range police forces of their own: Ertzaintza in the Basque Country, Policia Foral in Navarre and Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalonia. Other communities have a more limited force or none at all (like the Policia Autonoma Andaluza in Andalusia or the BESCAM in Madrid).However, the recent amendments made to their respective Statute of Autonomy by a series of "ordinary" Autonomous Communities such as the Valencian Community or Aragon have quite dilluted this original de facto distinction.
Subdivisions
Autonomous communities are composed of provinces (provincias),which serve as the territorial building blocks for the former. In turn, provinces are composed of municipalities (municipios). The existence of these two subdivisions is granted and protected by the constitution, not necessarily by the Statutes of Autonomy themselves. Municipalities are granted autonomy to manage their internal affairs, and provinces are the territorial divisions designed to carry out the activities of the State.The current fifty province structure is based—with minor changes—on the one created in 1833 by Javier de Burgos. The communities of Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, Murcia and Navarre, having been granted autonomy as single-provinces for historical reasons, are counted as provinces as well.
Economy
The centre-right government of former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar had worked successfully to gain admission to the group of countries launching the euro in 1999. Unemployment stood at 7.6% in October 2006, a rate that compared favorably to many other European countries, and especially with the early 1990s when it stood at over 20%. Perennial weak points of Spain's economy include high inflation,a large underground economy,and an education system which OECD reports place among the poorest for developed countries, together with the United States and UK.However, the property bubble that had begun building from 1997, fed by historically low interest rates and an immense surge in immigration, imploded in 2008, leading to a rapidly weakening economy and soaring unemployment. By the end of May 2009 unemployment had already reached 18.7% (37% for youths).The Spanish economy had been credited for having avoided the virtual zero growth rate of some of its largest partners in the EU.In fact, the country's economy had created more than half of all the new jobs in the European Union over the five years ending 2005, a process that is rapidly being reversed.The Spanish economy had been until recently regarded as one of the most dynamic within the EU, attracting significant amounts of foreign investment.During the last four decades the Spanish tourism industry has grown to become the second biggest in the world, worth approximately 40 billion Euros, about 5% of GDP, in 2006.More recently, the Spanish economy had benefited greatly from the global real estate boom, with construction representing an astonishing 16% of GDP and 12% of employment in its final yearAccording to calculations by the German newspaper Die Welt, Spain had been on course to overtake countries like Germany in per capita income by 2011.However, the downside of the now defunct real estate boom was a corresponding rise in the levels of personal debt; as prospective homeowners had struggled to meet asking prices, the average level of household debt tripled in less than a decade. This placed especially great pressure upon lower to middle income groups; by 2005 the median ratio of indebtedness to income had grown to 125%, due primarily to expensive boom time mortgages that now often exceed the value of the property.In 2008/2009 the credit crunch and world recession manifested itself in Spain through a massive downturn in the property sector. Fortunately, Spain's banks and financial services avoided the more severe problems of their counterparts in the USA and UK, due mainly to a stringently enforced conservative financial regulatory regime. The Spanish financial authorities had not forgotten the country's own banking crisis of 1979 and an earlier real estate precipitated banking crisis of 1993. Indeed, Spain's largest bank, Banco Santander, took part in the UK government's bail-out of part of the UK banking sector.A European Commission forecast had predicted Spain would enter a recession by the end of 2008.According to Spain’s Finance Minister,“Spain faces its deepest recession in half a century”.Spain's government forecast the unemployment rate would rise to 16% in 2009. The ESADE business school predicts 20%.
Demographics
In 2008 the population of Spain officially reached 46 million people, as recorded by the Padron municipal.Spain's population density, at 91/km? (235/sq mi),is lower than that of most Western European countries and its distribution across the country is very unequal. With the exception of the region surrounding the capital, Madrid, the most populated areas lie around the coast.The population of Spain doubled during the 20th century, principally due to the spectacular demographic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s. The pattern of growth was extremely uneven, however, due to large-scale internal migration from the rural interior to the industrial cities during this period. No fewer than eleven of Spain's fifty provinces saw an absolute decline in population over the century. After the birth rate plunged in the 1980s and Spain's population growth rate dropped, the population again trended upward, based initially on the return of many Spaniards who had emigrated to other European countries during the 1970s, and more recently, fueled by large numbers of immigrants, mostly from Latin America (39%), Eastern Europe (15%), North Africa (16%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (4%).In 2005, Spain instituted a three-month amnesty program through which certain hitherto undocumented aliens were granted legal residency. Also there are some significant pockets of population that have come from other EU countries – 21% of foreign residents – especially on the Mediterranean costas and Balearic islands, where many Europeans choose to live their retirement or telework. These are mostly English, French, German, and Dutch and, from outside the EU, Norwegian.Substantial populations descended from Spanish colonists and immigrants exist in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America. Beginning in the late 15th century, large numbers of Iberian colonists settled in what became Latin America and at present most white Latin Americans (about one-third of the total population) are of Spanish or Portuguese origin. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Spaniards emigrated, mostly to Peru and Mexico.They were joined by 450,000 in the next century.Between 1846 and 1932 nearly 5 million Spaniards went to the Americas, especially to Argentina and Brazil.From 1960 to 1975, approximately two million Spaniards migrated to Western Europe. During the same time period, about 300,000 people left Spain for Latin America.
Languages
Spanish (espanol or castellano, Castilian) is spoken all over the country and so is the only language with official status nationwide. But a number of regional languages have been declared co-official, along with Spanish, in the constituent communities where they are spoken:
-Basque (euskera) (2%) in the Basque Country and Navarre;
-Catalan (catala) (17%) in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands; Valencian (valencia), a distinct variant of Catalan, is official in the Valencian Community;
-Galician (galego) (7%) in Galicia.
There are also some other surviving Romance minority languages such as the Astur-Leonese group, which includes two languages in Spain: Asturian (officially called "Bable") which has protected status in Asturias, and Leonese, which is protected in Castile and Leon. Aragonese is vaguely recognized in Aragon.[99] Unlike Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, these languages do not have any official status. This might be due to their very small number of speakers, a less significant written tradition in comparison to Catalan or Galician, and lower self-awareness of their speakers which traditionally meant lack of strong popular demand for their recognition in the regions in which they are spoken.In the North African Spanish city of Melilla, Tarifit is spoken by a significant part of the population. In the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast and the islands, English and German are widely spoken by tourists, foreign residents, and tourism workers.
Religion
Christianity  ? 76%
Irreligion / others  ? 20%
Islam  ? 2.3%
Judaism  ? 0.1%
Others  ? 1.7%
Roman Catholicism has long been the main religion of Spain, though it no longer has official status. According to a July 2009 study by the Spanish Center of Sociological Research about 76% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholics, 2% other faith, and about 20% identify with no religion. Most Spaniards do not participate regularly in religious services. This same study shows that of the Spaniards who identify themselves as religious, 58% hardly ever or never go to church, 17% go to church some times a year, 9% some time per month and 15% every Sunday or multiple times per week.But according to a December 2006 study, 48% of the population declared a belief in a supreme being, while 41% described themselves as atheist or agnostic.Altogether, about 22% of the entire Spanish population attends religious services at least once per month.Though Spanish society has become considerably more secular in recent decades, the influx of Latin American immigrants, who tend to be strong Catholic practitioners, has helped the Catholic Church to recover.Protestant denominations exist in the country, all of them with fewer than 50,000 members. 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 (105,000) in number. In addition, about 41,000 residents of Spain are members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The recent waves of immigration have also led to an increasing number of Muslims, who number approximately one million in Spain. Presently, Islam is the second largest religion in Spain, accounting for approximately 2.3% of the total population.Since their expulsion in 1492, Muslims did not live in Spain for centuries. Late 19th-century colonial expansion in northwestern Africa gave some number of residents in the Spanish Morocco and the Western Sahara full citizenship. Their ranks have since been bolstered by recent immigration, especially from Morocco.Judaism was practically non-existent in Spain from the 1492 expulsion until the 19th century, when Jews were again permitted to enter the country. Currently there are around 62,000 Jews in Spain, or less than 1% of the total population. Most are arrivals in the past century, while some are descendants of earlier Spanish Jews. Approximately 80,000 Jews are thought to have lived in Spain on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition.
Sport
Sport in Spain has been dominated by football since the early 20th century. Basketball, tennis, cycling, handball, motorcycling and, lately, Formula One are also important due to presence of Spanish champions in all these disciplines. Today, Spain is a major world sports power, especially since the 1992 Summer Olympics that were hosted in Barcelona and promoted a great variety of sports in the country. The tourism industry has led to an improvement in sports infrastructure, especially for water sports, golf and skiing.
Public holidays
Public holidays celebrated in Spain include a mix of religious (Roman Catholic), national and regional observances. Each municipality is allowed to declare a maximum of 14 public holidays per year; up to nine of these are chosen by the national government and at least two are chosen locally.