Articles on Spain: Spain (Listeni/ˈspeɪn/; Spanish: España [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España),[c][d] is a sovereign state located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Along with France and Morocco, it is one of only three countries to have both Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines. Spains 1,214 km (754 mi) border with Portugal is the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, three exclaves in North Africa, Ceuta, Melilla, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera that border Morocco, and the islands and peñones (rocks) of Alborán, Chafarinas, Alhucemas, and Perejil. With an area of 505,992 km2 (195,365 sq mi), Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, and the fifth largest country in Europe. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. It came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania. In the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors to the south. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century, following the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs and the completion of the centuries-long reconquest, or Reconquista, of the peninsula from the Moors in 1492. In the early modern period, Spain became one of historys first global colonial empires, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over 500 million Spanish speakers, making Spanish the worlds second most spoken first language. Modern Spain is a democracy organized in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a developed country with the 13th largest economy in the world. It is a member of the United Nations, NATO, OECD, and WTO. The origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain and are possibly unknown due to inadequate evidence. Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning city of the western world. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenecian word spy, meaning to forge metals. Therefore i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged.[9] It may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning island of rabbits, land of rabbits or edge, a reference to Spains location at the end of the Mediterranean; Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a coney at her feet, and Strabo called it the land of the rabbits. Hispania may derive from the poetic use of the term Hesperia, reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a western land or land of the setting sun (Hesperia, Ἑσπερία in Greek) and Spain, being still further west, as Hesperia ultima. There is the claim that Hispania derives from the Basque word Ezpanna meaning edge or border, another reference to the fact that the Iberian Peninsula constitutes the southwest corner of the European continent. Two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abrabanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had been given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, who also ruled over a kingdom in Spain. Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España (Spain) took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c. 350 BCE Spain is openly multilingual, and the constitution establishes that the nation will protect all Spaniards and the peoples of Spain in the exercise of human rights, their cultures and traditions, languages and institutions. Spanish (español)—officially recognized in the constitution as Castilian (castellano)—is the official language of the entire country, and it is the right and duty of every Spaniard to know the language. The constitution also establishes that all other Spanish languages—that is, all other languages of Spain—will also be official in their respective autonomous communities in accordance to their Statutes, their organic regional legislations, and that the richness of the distinct linguistic modalities of Spain represents a patrimony which will be the object of special respect and protection. The other official languages of Spain, co-official with Spanish are: Basque (euskara) in the Basque Country and Navarre; Catalan (català) in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and in the Valencian Community, where its distinct modality of the language is officially known as Valencian (valencià); and Galician (galego) in Galicia As a percentage of the general population, Basque is spoken by 2%, Catalan (or Valencian) by 17%, and Galician by 7% of all Spaniards. In Catalonia, Aranese (aranés), a local variety of the Occitan language, has been declared co-official along with Catalan and Spanish since 2006. It is spoken only in the comarca of Val dAran by roughly 6,700 people. Other Romance minority languages, though not official, have special recognition, such as the Astur-Leonese group (Asturian, asturianu; also called bable, in Asturias[161] and Leonese, llionés, in Castile and León) and Aragonese (aragonés) in Aragon. In the North African Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, Riff Berber is spoken by a significant part of the population. In the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast and the islands, English and German are widely spoken by tourists, foreign residents, and tourism workers. Roman Catholicism has long been the main religion of Spain, and although it no longer has official status by law, in all public schools in Spain students have to choose either a religion or ethics class, and Catholicism is the only religion officially taught. According to an April 2014 study by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research about 69% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholics, 2% other faith, and about 26% identify with no religion (9.4% of the total are atheists). Most Spaniards do not participate regularly in religious services. This same study shows that of the Spaniards who identify themselves as religious, 59% hardly ever or never go to church, 15% go to church some times a year, 8% some time per month and 14% every Sunday or multiple times per week. Altogether, about 22% of the entire Spanish population attends religious services at least once per month.[164] Though Spanish society has become considerably more secular in recent decades, the influx of Latin American immigrants, who tend to be strong Catholic practitioners, has helped the Catholic Church to recover. There have been four Spanish Popes. Damasus I, Calixtus III, Alexander VI and Benedict XIII. Spanish misticism was an important intellectual fight against Protestantism with Teresa of Ávila, a reformist nun, ahead. The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius of Loyola. Protestant churches have about 1,200,000 members. There are about 105,000 Jehovahs Witnesses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has approximately 46,000 adherents in 133 congregations in all regions of the country and has a temple in the Moratalaz District of Madrid. A study made by Unión de Comunidades Islámicas de España demonstrated that there were about 1,700,000 inhabitants of Muslim background living in Spain as of 2012, accounting for 3-4% of the total population of Spain. The vast majority was composed of immigrants and descendants originating from Morocco and other African countries. More than 514,000 (30%) of them had Spanish nationality. The recent waves of immigration have also led to an increasing number of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Muslims. After the Reconquista in 1492, Muslims did not live in Spain for centuries. Late 19th-century colonial expansion in northwestern Africa gave a number of residents in Spanish Morocco and Western Sahara full citizenship. Their ranks have since been bolstered by recent immigration, especially from Morocco and Algeria. Judaism was practically non-existent in Spain from the 1492 expulsion until the 19th century, when Jews were again permitted to enter the country. Currently there are around 62,000 Jews in Spain, or 0.14% of the total population. Most are arrivals in the past century, while some are descendants of earlier Spanish Jews. Approximately 80,000 Jews are thought to have lived in Spain on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 09:48:32 +0000