Spain

Reino de España Kingdom of Spain
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Plus Ultra"  (Latin) "Further Beyond"
Anthem: Marcha Real 1  (Spanish) Royal March
Capital (and largest city)	Madrid 40°26′N 3°42′W
Official languages	Spanish 2
Government	Constitutional monarchy
- Head of State	King Juan Carlos I
- President of    the Government	José L. Rodríguez Zapatero
Formation	15th century
- Dynastic union	1516
- Unification	1469
-   de facto	1716
-   de jure	1812
Accession to EU	January 1, 1986
Area
- Total	506,030 km² (51st) 195,364 sq mi
- Water (%)	1.04
Population
- 2006 census	44,708,964
- Density	88.39 /km² (106th) 220 /sq mi
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
- Total	$1.133 trillion (11th)
- Per capita	$26,320 (25th)
GDP (nominal)	2005 estimate
- Total	$1.124 trillion (8th)
- Per capita	$27,226 (22nd)
HDI (2004)	0.938 (high) (19th)
Currency	Euro (€)3 (EUR)
Time zone	CET4 (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Internet TLD	.es5
Calling code	+34
1 Also serves as the Royal anthem. 2 In some autonomous communities, Aranese (Occitan), Basque, Catalan and Galician are co-official languages. 3 Prior to 1999 (by law, 2002 de facto): Spanish Peseta. 4 Except in the Canary Islands, which are in the GMT time zone (UTC, UTC+1 in summer). 5 The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: España, Reino de España), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two small exclaves in North Africa (both bordering Morocco). The mainland of Spain is bounded on the south and east by Mediterranean Sea (containing the Balearic Islands), on the north by the Cantabrian Sea and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean (containing the Canary Islands off the African coast). Spain shares land borders with Portugal, France, Andorra, Gibraltar and Morocco. It is the larger of two sovereign states that make up the Iberian Peninsula — the other is Portugal.

Different cultures have settled in the area of modern Spain, such as the Celts, Iberians, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors. For just over five centuries, during the Middle Ages, large areas were under the control of Islamic rulers, a fragment of which survived as late as 1492, when the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragón completed the 770 years long process of driving the Moors out. That same year, Christopher Columbus reached the New World, leading to the creation of the world-wide Spanish Empire. Spain became the most powerful country in Europe, but continued wars and other problems gradually reduced Spain to a diminished status. The 20th century was dominated in the middle years by the Franco dictatorship; with the dawn of a stable democracy in 1978, and having joined what is now known as the European Union in 1986, Spain has enjoyed an economic and cultural renaissance.

There are a number of hypotheses as to the origin of the Roman name "Hispania", the root of the Spanish name España and the English name Spain.

Spain is a democracy which is organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is a developed country with the eighth-largest economy in the world.

History

Prehistory and pre-Roman peoples in the Iberian Peninsula

Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The best known artifacts of these prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the Altamira cave of northern Spain, which were likely created about 15,000 BCE.

The historical peoples of the peninsula were the Iberians and the Celts, the former inhabiting the southwest part of the peninsula and along the Mediterranean side through to the northeast, the latter inhabiting the north and northwest part of the peninsula. In the inner part of the peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, known as Celtiberian.

The earliest urban culture is believed to be that of the semi-mythical southern city of Tartessos (perhaps pre-1100 BCE). Between about 500 BCE and 300 BCE, the seafaring Phoenicians, and Greeks founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries. The Carthaginians briefly took control of much of the Mediterranean coast in the course of the Punic Wars until they were eventually defeated and replaced by the Romans.

Roman Empire and Germanic invasions

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Grietas y deslizamientos de tierra han aparecido en la ladera izquiera del embalse de Yesa (Zaragoza-Navarra, SPAIN), amenazando con desplazar una gran masa de tierra que al caer al agua haría una hola tipo sunami que rebasaría la presa y podría destruir un pueblo de 5000 habitantes (Sangüesa). Más info en www.yesano.com