Spain
Spain,[f] officially the Kingdom of Spain,[a][g] is a country
in Southwestern Europe with territories in North Africa.[12][h]
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 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.
History
Prehistory and pre-Roman peoples
Modern humans first arrived in Iberia from the north on
foot about 35,000 years ago.[27] The best-known artefacts
of these prehistoric human settlements are the paintings in
the Altamira cave of Cantabria in northern Iberia, which
were created from 35,600 to 13,500 BCE by Cro-Magnon.
[28][29]
Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that
the Iberian Peninsula acted as one of several major
refugia from which northern Europe was repopulated
following the end of the last ice age.
Roman Hispania and the Visigothic Kingdom
During the Second Punic War, roughly between 210
and 205 BCE, the expanding Roman Republic
captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the
Mediterranean coast. Although it took the Romans
nearly two centuries to complete the
conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, they retained
control of it for over six centuries. Roman rule was
bound together by law, language, and the
Roman road
Muslim era and Reconquista
From 711 to 718, as part of the expansion of the
Umayyad Caliphate which had
conquered North Africa from the Byzantine Empire,
nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by
Muslims from across the Strait of Gibraltar, resulting
in the collapse of the Visigothic Kingdom. Only a
small area in the mountainous north of the peninsula
stood out of the territory seized during the initial
invasion.
Spanish Empire
In 1469, the crowns of the Christian kingdoms of
Castile and Aragon were united by the marriage of
their monarchs, Isabella I and Ferdinand II,
respectively. In 1492, Jews were forced to choose
between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion;[41]
as many as 200,000 Jews were
expelled from Castile and Aragon. The year 1492
also marked the arrival of Christopher Columbus in
the New World, during a voyage funded by Isabella.
Columbus's first voyage crossed the Atlantic and
reached the Caribbean Islands, beginning the
European exploration and conquest of the
Americas.
18th century
The decline culminated in a controversy over
succession to the throne which consumed the first
years of the 18th century. The
War of the Spanish Succession was a wide-ranging
international conflict combined with a civil war, and
was to cost the kingdom its European possessions
and its position as a leading European power
Liberalism and nation state
In 1793, Spain went to war against the revolutionary
new French Republic as a member of
the first Coalition. The subsequent
War of the Pyrenees polarised the country in a
reaction against the gallicised elites and following
defeat in the field, peace was made with France in
1795 at the Peace of Basel in which Spain lost
control over two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola. In
1807, a secret treaty between Napoleon and the
unpopular prime minister led to a new declaration of
war against Britain and Portugal. French troops
entered the country to invade Portugal but instead
occupied Spain's major fortresses. The Spanish
king abdicated and a puppet kingdom satellite to the
French Empire was installed with Joseph Bonaparte
as king.
Civil War and Francoist dictatorship
The Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936: on 17 and 18
July, part of the military carried out a coup d'état that
triumphed in only part of the country. The situation led to a
civil war, in which the territory was divided into two zones:
one under the authority of the Republican government,
that counted on outside support from the Soviet Union
and Mexico (and from International Brigades), and the
other controlled by the putschists (the
Nationalist or rebel faction), most critically supported by
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Republic was not
supported by the Western powers due to the British-led
policy of non-intervention. General Francisco Franco was
sworn in as the supreme leader of the rebels on 1 October
1936. An uneasy relationship between the Republican
government and the grassroots anarchists who had
initiated a partial social revolution also ensued.
Restoration of democracy
In 1962, a group of politicians involved in the
opposition to Franco's regime inside the country and
in exile met in the congress of the
European Movement in Munich, where they made a
resolution in favour of democracy
Geography
At 505,992 km2 (195,365 sq mi), Spain is the world's
fifty-first largest country and
Europe's fourth largest country. It is some
47,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) smaller than France. At
3,715 m (12,188 ft), Mount Teide (Tenerife) is the highest
mountain peak in Spain and is the third largest volcano in
the world from its base. Spain is a transcontinental country
, having territory in both Europe and Africa.
