SPAIN
Spain,[g] or the Kingdom of Spain,[a][h] is a country in Southern and Western
Europe with territories in North Africa.[i] Featuring the southernmost
point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the
fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority
of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern
Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea, and
the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in mainland Africa. Peninsular Spain is
bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and
south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the
Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid, and other major urban
areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Málaga, Murcia, and Palma de
Mallorca.
In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Celts, Iberians, and
other pre-Roman peoples. With the Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the
province of Hispania was established. Following
the Romanisation and Christianisation of Hispania, the fall of the Western Roman
Empire ushered in the inward migration of tribes from Central Europe, including
the Visigoths, who formed the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early
eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and
during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centred
on Córdoba. The several Christian kingdoms that emerged in Northern Iberia, chief
among them Asturias, León, Castile, Aragon and Navarre, made an intermittent
southward military expansion and repopulation, known as the Reconquista, repelling
Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Nasrid
Kingdom of Granada in 1492. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and
the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often considered the de
facto unification of Spain as a nation state.
During the Age of Discovery, Spain pioneered the exploration and conquest of
the New World, made the first circumnavigation of the globe and formed one of
the largest empires in history.[12] The Spanish Empire reached a global scale and
spread across all continents, underpinning the rise of a global trading system fueled
primarily by precious metals. In the 18th century, the Bourbon Reforms, particularly
the Nueva Planta decrees, centralized mainland Spain, strengthening royal authority
and modernizing administrative structures.[13] In the 19th century, after the
victorious Peninsular War against Napoleonic occupation forces, the following
political divisions between liberals and absolutists led to the breakaway of most of
the American colonies. These political divisions finally converged in the 20th century
with the Spanish Civil War, giving rise to the Francoist dictatorship that lasted until
1975. With the restoration of democracy and its entry into the European Union, the
country experienced an economic boom that profoundly transformed it socially and
politically. Since the Spanish Golden Age, Spanish
art, architecture, music, poetry, painting, literature, and cuisine have been influential
worldwide, particularly in Western Europe and the Americas. As a reflection of its
large cultural wealth, Spain is the world's second-most visited country, has one of the
world's largest numbers of World Heritage Sites, and it is the most popular
destination for European students.[14] Its cultural influence extends to over 600
million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native
language and the world's most widely spoken Romance language.
