<text><span class="style42"></span><span class="style12">SPAIN</span><span class="style14"></span><span class="style42">Official name:</span><span class="style13"> Reino de España (Kingdom of Spain)</span><span class="style42">Member of: </span><span class="style13">UN, NATO, EU/EC, OECD, OSCE, WEU</span><span class="style42">Area: </span><span class="style13">504782 km2 (194897 sq mi) including the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla</span><span class="style42">Population: </span><span class="style13">39952000 (1991 census)</span><span class="style42">Capital: </span><span class="style13">Madrid 4846000 (city 3121000; including suburbs; 1991 census) </span><span class="style42">Other major cities: </span><span class="style13">Barcelona 3400000 (city 1707000; L’Hospitalet 269000; Badalona 206000; Sabadell 184000), Valencia 1060000 (city 777000), Seville (Sevilla) 754000 (city 684000), Zaragoza 614000, Málaga 525000, Bilbao 477000 (city 372000), Las Palmas (de Gran Canaria) 348000, Valladolid 345000, Murcia 329000, Palma de Mallorca 309000, Córdoba 309000 (1991 census)</span><span class="style42">Languages: </span><span class="style13">Spanish or Castilian (official; as a first language over 70%), Catalan (as a first language over 20%), Basque (3%), Galician (4%)</span><span class="style42">Religion: </span><span class="style13">Roman Catholic (95%)</span><span class="style42">GOVERNMENT</span><span class="style13">Spain is a constitutional monarchy. The Cortes (Parliament) comprises a Senate (Upper House) and a Chamber of Deputies (Lower House). The Senate consists of 208 senators – 4 from each province, 5 from the Balearic Islands, 6 from the Canary Islands and 2 each from Ceuta and Melilla – elected by universal adult suffrage for four years, plus 47 senators indirectly elected by the autonomous communities. The Congress of Deputies has 350 members directly elected for four years under a system of proportional representation. The King appoints a Prime Minister (President of the Council) who commands a majority in the Cortes. The PM, in turn, appoints a Council of Ministers (Cabinet) responsible to the Chamber of Deputies. Each of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities (regions) has its own legislature.</span><span class="style42">GEOGRAPHY</span><span class="style13">In the north of Spain a mountainous region stretches from the Pyrenees – dividing Spain from France – through the Cantabrian mountains to Galicia on the Atlantic coast. Much of the country is occupied by the central plateau, the Meseta. This is around 600 m (2000 ft) high, but rises to the higher Sistema Central in Castile, and ends in the south at the Sierra Morena. The Sierra Nevada range in Andalusia in the south contains Mulhacén, mainland Spain’s highest peak at 3478 m (11411 ft). The principal lowlands include the Ebro Valley in the northeast, a coastal plain around Valencia in the east, and the valley of the Guadalquivir River in the south. The Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean comprise four main islands – Mallorca (Majorca), Menorca (Minorca), Ibiza and Formentera – with seven much smaller islands. The Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco and the Western Sahara, comprise five large islands – Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and La Palma – plus two smaller islands and six islets. Pico del Tiede in the Canaries is Spain’s highest peak at 3716 m (12192 ft). The cities of Ceuta and Melilla are enclaves on the north coast of Morocco. </span><span class="style42">Principal rivers: </span><span class="style13">Tagus (Tajo) 1007 km (626 mi), Ebro 910 km (565 mi). </span><span class="style42">Climate: </span><span class="style13">The southeast has a Mediterranean climate with hot summers and mild winters. The dry interior is continental with warm summers and cold winters. The high Pyrenees have a cold Alpine climate, while the northwest (Galicia) has a wet Atlantic climate with cool summers.</span><span class="style42">ECONOMY</span><span class="style13">Over 10% of the labor force is involved in agriculture. The principal crops include barley, wheat, sugar beet, citrus fruit and grapes (for wine). Pastures for livestock occupy some 20% of the land. Manufacturing developed rapidly from the 1960s, and there are now major motor-vehicle, textile, plastics, metallurgical, shipbuilding, chemical and engineering industries. Foreign investors have been encouraged to promote new industry, but unemployment remains high. Banking and commerce are important, and tourism is a major foreign-currency earner. Over 53000000 foreign tourists a year visit Spain, mainly staying at beach resorts on the Mediterranean, Balearic Islands and the Canaries. </span><span class="style42">Currency: </span><span class="style13">Peseta.</span><span class="style42">HISTORY</span><span class="style13">In the 8th century bc Greek settlements were founded on the Mediterranean coast, and in the following century Celtic peoples settled in the Iberian Peninsula. In the 6th century bc the Carthaginians founded colonies in Spain, including Barcelona, Cartagena and Alicante, but from the time of the Second Punic War (218 bc) the Romans gradually annexed Iberia. Roman rule in Spain lasted until the Germanic invasions of the 5th century. By the 7th century almost all of the Iberian Peninsula was controlled by the Visigoths and Christianity had been introduced. Muslim invaders from Morocco overran most of the peninsula rapidly (711–714) and a powerful emirate, later a caliphate, was established at Córdoba, which became one of the most important cities in the Islamic world. From the 11th century, a lengthy struggle began as small Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain began to expand south into Muslim areas (the Reconquista). Asturias was the first Spanish Christian kingdom to defeat the Moors – at Covadonga (722) – but by 1035 Castile, Aragon and Navarre were the leaders of the reconquest. By the 13th century only Granada remained in Muslim hands.Unity was achieved following the marriage in 1469 of Ferdinand II (1452–1516; king of Aragon after 1479) to Isabella I (1451–1504; queen of Castile after 1474). The new nation’s domestic and international situation changed rapidly. Granada was reconquered from the Moors in 1492, and a dramatic expansion of Spanish power outside of Europe began almost immediately. The Spanish monarchs sponsored voyages of discovery and gained an empire in Central and South America. In 1516, Charles I (1500–58; after 1519 the Emperor Charles V) became king of Spain and brought Habsburg domination to Europe. Control of such vast territories by one ruler proved impossible, and after Charles’ abdication in 1555, the Habsburg realms were divided between what became the Austrian and Spanish branches of the family. The territories of the Spanish ruler were further diminished by the revolt and then the independence of the Netherlands (1568–1648). Many Spaniards played important roles in the Counter-Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. Philip II encouraged the Inquisition and sent the Armada against Protestant England, while Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuits, and the example of Teresa of Avilá encouraged mysticism in Roman Catholicism.Spanish power in the 17th and 18th centuries was probably overextended. The wealth of the Latin American possessions was not used to power economic development in Spain. The 17th-century Spanish Habsburgs were not as gifted as their ancestors and were unable to override strong provincial loyalties and institutions that hindered the development of a centralized state. In 1700, the Habsburg line ended and a grandson of Louis XIV of France, became the first Bourbon king of Spain as Philip V (1683–1746). In the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), Spain lost further possessions – including Belgium, Luxembourg, Lombardy, southern Italy and Sardinia – and ceded Gibraltar to Britain. However, Spain’s Bourbon rulers brought a measure of reform and enlightenment to a deeply conservative country. In 1808 Napoleon placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, but Spanish resistance was spirited and in 1814 the British and Spanish armies forced the evacuation of the French.King Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) – restored in 1814 – was an absolutist who rejected a liberal constitution introduced in his absence. He lost the Latin American empire when the Spanish possessions in Central and South America made good use of Spain’s weakness to take their independence. During the first half of the 19th century, Spain saw a series of struggles between liberal and monarchist elements, with radical republicans poised to intervene from the left and army officers from the right. In the Carlist Wars (1833–39, 1849 and 1872–76) the supporters of Queen Isabella II (1830–1904) – Ferdinand VII’s daughter – countered the rival claims of her uncle Don Carlos and his descendants. Isabella was deposed in the revolution of 1868, which was followed by a short-lived liberal monarchy under an Italian prince (1870–73) and a brief republican experiment in 1873–74. In the last decades of the 19th century, the political situation became increasingly unstable, with the turmoil of labor disturbances, pressure for provincial autonomy, and growing anti-clericalism. As a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898 the last significant colonial possessions – Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico – were lost. The end of Spain’s empire inflicted a severe wound to Spanish pride and led to doubts as to whether the constitutional monarchy of Alfonso XIII (1886–1941) was capable of delivering the dynamic leadership that Spain was thought to require. Spain remained neutral in World War I, during which social tensions increased. A growing disillusionment with parliamentary government and political parties led to a military coup in 1923 led by General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1870–1930). Primo was initially supported by Alfonso XIII, but in 1930 the King withdrew that support. However, the range of forces arrayed against the monarchy and the threat of civil war led Alfonso to abdicate (1931). The peace of the succeeding republic was short-lived. Neither of the political extremes – left nor right – was prepared to tolerate the perceived inefficiency and lack of authority of the Second Spanish Republic. In 1936, the army generals rose against a newly elected republican government. Nationalists – led by General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) and supported by Germany and Italy – fought the republicans in the bitter Spanish Civil War. Franco triumphed in 1939 to become ruler – Caudillo – of the neo-Fascist Spanish State. Political expression was restricted, and from 1942 to 1967 the Cortes (Parliament) was not directly elected. Spain remained neutral in World War II, although it was beholden to Germany. After 1945, Franco emphasized Spain’s anti-Communism – a policy that brought his regime some international acceptance from the West during the Cold War.In 1969, Franco named Alfonso XIII’s grandson Juan Carlos (1938– ) as his successor. The monarchy was restored on Franco’s death (1975) and the King eased the transition to democracy through the establishment of a liberal constitution in 1978. In 1981 Juan Carlos played an important role in putting down an attempted army coup. In 1982 Spain joined NATO and elected a socialist government. Since 1986 the country has been a member of the EC. Despite the granting of regional autonomy (1978), Spain continues to be troubled by campaigns for provincial independence, for example in Catalonia, and by the violence of the Basque separatist movement ETA.</span></text>
