Learn About Spain


	Palau Nacional, Barcelona, Spain

Spain is the fourth largest European country in area, after Russia. Ukraine, and France. Situated in southwestern Europe, it occupies most of the Iberian Peninsula, which it shares with its smaller; western neighbor, Portugal. Spain is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the northwest and the Bay of Biscay (an arm of the Atlantic) on the north. In the northeast, the Pyrenees mountains divide it from France and the rest of the European continent. On the southeast and east, Spain borders the Mediterranean Sea, with the Strait of Gibraltar narrowly separating it from North Africa.

Spain's geographical position has greatly influenced its history. With its long Mediterranean coastline, it became a crossroads of early civilizations in the region. Its closeness to Africa brought a Moorish invasion and conquest, which added a new element to its development.

Beginning in the late 1400s, Spain took a leading role in the exploration and colonization of the Americas, where it built a vast empire. Although its empire is gone, the Spanish language and cultural heritage remain very much alive throughout most of Latin America, and its glory is still reflected in Spanish art, architecture, literature, and music.

Natural Resources. Except for the river valleys, Spain has only limited areas of fertile soil. Slightly more than one-third of the land is under cultivation. The country's once-extensive mineral resources still include deposits of coal, iron ore, potash, mercury, and copper, but mining has declined in importance. Spain obtains more than one-third of its electricity from nuclear power; the rest of its energy is derived from imported oil. The only remaining large areas of forest are in the north.

Madrid, the capital and largest city, is situated on the Meseta plateau, in the heart of Spain. Originally an alcázar (fortress) founded by Muslims, the site fell to Christian forces in 1083. The Castilian court located permanently here in 1561.

Madrid endured a three-year siege by the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).

Barcelona, the historical capital of Catalonia, is Spain's second largest city and chief port. Settled by the Phoenicians, it was, according to local tradition, named for the Carthaginian family of Barca. It grew to importance in Roman times and became a political and economic power during the Middle Ages under the counts of Barcelona. The city's fortunes subsequently fell, a victim of its rivalry with Madrid and Castile. Industrialization transformed Barcelona during the late 1800s. During the Spanish Civil War, it was a center of resistance to the Nationalists, and the postwar Franco regime banned all aspects of Catalan culture. Its choice as the site of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games helped in its revival.

Valencia, a Mediterranean port city, lies in a fertile agricultural region famed for its oranges. Founded by the Romans, it was one of the chief cities of Muslim Spain.

Seville (Sevilla), the largest city of southern Spain, is situated on the Guadalquivir River. An important city under the Romans and Visigoths, it became one of the centers of Muslim culture.

Government
Spain is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary form of government. Under the 1978 constitution, the king is the head of state. The parliament, or National Assembly, is known as the Cortes. It is made up of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, both elected for 4-year terms. The king appoints the president of the government, or prime minister, who heads the Council of Ministers. The prime minister is chosen from the political party winning the largest number of seats in the Cortes.

Spain is divided into 50 provinces, each with an elected assembly and a governor appointed by the central government. There are also 17 autonomous communities, based on the country's historic regions. Each autonomous community has a regional parliament and cultural autonomy, including the right to use its own language.

Spain's overseas territories now consist of two tiny enclaves in North Africa — Ceuta and Melilla — both of which lie within Morocco.

History
Early History. The Phoenicians, a seafaring and trading people who originated in what is now Lebanon, reached southern Spain in about 1000 B.C. They founded some of its earliest towns, including Málaga and Cádiz. Greeks established a string of colonies along the eastern coast between 600 and 400 B.C. The Carthaginians, descendants of the Phoenicians, established their power in Cartagena, the southern port city named for them. Rome's defeat of Carthage in the 200s B.C. brought Roman rule to the peninsula. Spain became a vital part of the Roman Empire, four of whose emperors were of Spanish origin. The Visigoths who succeeded the Romans held sway in Spain for some 200 years, when a new people invaded Spain from the south.

Muslim Spain. In A.D. 711, Muslims from North Africa (known as Moors), led by the Moroccan general Tariq, crossed to Gibraltar, where they defeated an army under Roderick, one of several Visigothic kings. The Muslim conquest spread rapidly northward, crossing the Pyrenees into what is today France. The defeat of the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732, however, forced them back into Spain, where for the next 700 years their culture dominated the peninsula.

The Christian Reconquest. Muslim decline also came about as a result of the renewal of Christian strength and culture in the north. The kingdom of León organized a resistance to the Muslims that became very much like a holy war. León became the center of the later kingdom of Castile, which took the lead in ending Muslim domination in Spain. During a long military campaign, Castile added the Basque provinces, Valencia, and Andalusia to its domain. The rival kingdoms of Aragón and Catalonia vied with Castile for Navarre (later lost to France), and together they conquered the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Naples. The fall of Toledo (1085), Córdoba (1236), and Seville (1248) left only the kingdom of Granada in Muslim hands. But in 1492, Granada surrendered, completing the Christian reconquest of Spain. Its fall also led to the expulsion of Spanish Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Christianity.

The Spanish Empire. Spain's power and influence grew due to the marriage of Queen Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504) and Ferdinand II of Aragón (1452–1516), which led to the union of Spain's two largest kingdoms in 1479. Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored the voyages of Christopher Columbus, leading to the discovery of the Americas in 1492 and opening the way for Spain to colonize an empire in the West.

In 1496, the couple's eldest daughter, Joanna (Juana), married into Austria's Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus the succession of Joanna's son, Charles I (1500–58), to the Spanish throne in 1516, began nearly 200 years of Habsburg rule in Spain. Charles was elected Holy Roman emperor in 1519 and thereafter was known as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

More German than Spanish, Charles V involved Catholic Spain militarily in the Protestant Reformation and brought it into conflict with France and the Ottoman Turks. In 1522, he divided his vast empire into Spanish and Austrian branches. In the meantime, the Americas were becoming an outlet for those seeking fame and wealth abroad. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas had given Spain control of all American lands west of Brazil. Within a half century after Columbus' first voyage, Spanish conquistadors had colonized nearly two thirds of the Western Hemisphere, while Spanish priests had converted many native Indians to the Catholic faith.

Spain reached the height of its power under Charles' son, Philip II (1527–98). Unlike his father, Philip was thoroughly Spanish. By the end of his reign, Spain ruled Portugal and the Low Countries (including what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) as well as much of Italy, the Canary Islands, and North Africa. In addition, Spain's vast colonies in the Americas included all of present-day Mexico, Central America, the American Southwest, and the Philippine Islands, named for Philip himself.

Decline of Spanish Power. Spain's decline in power was nearly as swift as its rise. In 1566, the Dutch began a long-drawn-out revolt against Spanish rule in the Low Countries, one of its richest lands. The Dutch Revolt proved costly to Spain and eventually led to the formation of the Dutch Republic in 1581. That same decade, while attempting to invade the British Isles in 1588, the great Spanish fleet known as the Armada was soundly defeated by British naval forces in the English Channel, marking the first successful challenge to Spanish sea power. Together these events ended Spain's hopes of extending Catholic rule in Protestant northern Europe.

Philip II's successors were mostly of limited ability. As wars drained its resources, Spain resorted to borrowing enormous sums of money. This policy depleted its treasure of gold and silver from the Americas, causing massive inflation and bankrupting the country. Under Philip IV (1605–65), Portugal regained its independence (1640), and Spanish troops were defeated by the French at the Battle of Rocroi (1643).

Despite these economic and military setbacks, Spanish art and literature flourished in the late 1500s and early 1600s.

War of the Spanish Succession. The last Spanish Habsburg king was Charles II (1661–1700). Before he died childless in 1700, he named as his heir the Bourbon prince Philip of Anjou (1683–1746), a grandson of the French King, Louis XIV. Other European powers, fearing the power of a combined France and Spain, supported a rival candidate — the Archduke Charles, the second son of Leopold I (1640–1705), Holy Roman emperor and ruler of Austria.

In 1701, Philip's accession as Philip V of Spain set off the War of the Spanish Succession between the French and Austrians. The following year, Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands entered the war on the side of Austria. In Europe the Grand Alliance failed to conquer Spain, but the great English general, the Duke of Marlborough, succeeded in driving the French out of Germany and the Low Countries with his victories at the battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenaarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709).

In 1713 the British and Dutch quit the war by signing the Peace of Utrecht, which declared that France and Spain never be united. The Austrians fought on for another year. The 1714 Treaty of Rastatt left Philip V with control over Spain and Spanish America, but the Austrians gained most of Spanish Italy and the Spanish Netherlands (in present-day Belgium). Britain, now clearly the leading maritime power in Europe, gained Gibraltar, Minorca, Nova Scotia, and recognition of rights to Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay. Later Bourbon monarchs, though more capable than Philip, were nevertheless unable to restore Spanish power.

Peninsular War and Loss of Empire. In 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France, invaded Spain. He forced Ferdinand VII (1784–1833), Philip V's great grandson, to give up the throne and then made his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain. The move provoked a popular uprising. The conflict that resulted, known as the Peninsular War (and in Spain as the War of Independence) lasted until 1814, when British and Spanish forces drove out the French.

The war had caused nationalist feelings to soar, and a democratic constitution was proclaimed in 1812. But its failure to address colonial concerns led to the loss of most of Spain's empire in the Americas.

Period of Turmoil. Ferdinand VII, restored to the throne after Napoleon's downfall in 1814, refused to accept the constitution, leading to an uprising (1820–23) that was put down only with the help of French troops. The succession of Ferdinand's infant daughter, Isabella II (1830–1904), in 1833 was opposed by the supporters of Ferdinand's brother Don Carlos, setting off the first Carlist War (1833–39). A military revolt in 1868 forced Isabella to give up the throne. A new constitutional monarchy was proclaimed in 1869, but it lasted only until 1873. A short-lived republic, from 1873 to 1874, was torn by the second Carlist War (1872–76). It was overthrown by the army, which placed Isabella's young son, Alfonso XII (1857–85), on the throne in 1875.

The 1900s. Spain's imperial decline continued as the 1900s approached. Defeat in the Spanish-American War (1898) stripped it of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and its Pacific Island colonies.

At home, political differences frustrated attempts to create a more liberal Spanish society. Opposition to the church had become widespread because of its support of large landowners and unpopular governments. The country was further divided by the gulf between rich and poor. Increasing social unrest eventually brought about a military dictatorship (1923–30) under General Miguel Primo de Rivera.

Second Republic. In the 1931 local elections, a victory by opponents of the monarchy forced King Alfonso XIII (1886–1941) to leave the country, after which the Second Republic was proclaimed. The new republican government adopted a number of economic and social reforms, but in so doing, it alienated the church, the army, and the large landowners. In 1933 those conservatives returned to power. But new elections held in 1936 resulted in a narrow victory by the Popular Front, now composed of liberals, Socialists, and some Communists. Fears of even greater radical change led to an army revolt that launched the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).

Civil War. The republic was supported by the Loyalists (or Republicans), who received aid from the Soviet Union and attracted volunteers from more than twenty nations. They were opposed by the Nationalists, who were aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Superior military aid from Germany and Italy ultimately enabled the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) to win the war. One million people were killed or wounded in the conflict, and another million Loyalists fled the country.

The Franco Regime. Franco ruled Spain as a dictator for more than 35 years. As caudillo (leader), he was chief of state, commander of the armed forces, and head of the only legal political party, the Falange. He kept Spain out of World War II through artful diplomacy, began its postwar industrial development, and gave up most of its remaining African territories. In 1969 he named Prince Juan Carlos, grandson of Alfonso XIII, as his eventual successor.

Recent History. After Franco's death in 1975, the prince assumed the throne as Juan Carlos I (1938– ). The next year, Spain gave up its last large African dependency, Spanish Sahara (now known as Western Sahara). Under its new king, Spain quickly re-established a democratic government, and in 1977 the first free elections since before the civil war were held.

Spain became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1982 and of the European Community (now the European Union, or EU) in 1986. In 1999, the Spanish adopted the euro, the EU's common currency, as a further step toward European economic integration.

Robert W. Kern
University of New Mexico
Editor, Historical Dictionary of Modern Spain

Write about it:
List the major cities in Spain and write a brief summary about their importance. What are the major cities in your state? What makes a “major” city? Is your city considered a “major” city? Why or why not?

Flamenco in Seville
http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/traditional/spanish-flamenco-dancing.htm
Learn about the traditional song and dance of the Gypsies (flamencos) of Andalusia in southern Spain and how the music represents two kinds of dances, classic "alegrias" and Gypsy "bulerias."