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Kingdom of Spain Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:  Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Latin: "Further Beyond")
Anthem:  Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)  (Spanish: "Royal March")
Location of Spain
Capitaland largest city	Madrid
Official languages	Spanish. In some autonomous communities, Aranese (Occitan), Basque, Catalan and Galician are co-official.
Government	Constitutional monarchy
• King	Juan Carlos I
• Prime Minister	José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Formation 15th century
• Dynastic union	1516
• Unification	1469
•   De facto	1716
•   De jure	1812
• Water (%)	1.04
Population
• 2006 census	44,708,964
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.029 trillion (9th)
• Per capita	$27,542 (25th)
HDI (2004)	0.938 Error: Invalid HDI value (19th)
Currency	Euro (€) (EUR)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Calling code	34
ISO 3166 code	ES
Internet TLD	.es
Also serves as the Royal anthem. Prior to 1999(by law, 2002 de facto): Spanish Peseta. Except in the Canary Islands, which are in the GMT time zone (UTC, UTC+1 in summer). The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Template:Lang-es, Reino de España), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two small exclaves in North Africa (both bordering Morocco). Spain is a democracy which is organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is a developed country with the ninth-largest economy in the world. It is the larger of two sovereign states that make up the Iberian Peninsula — the other is Portugal.

To the west, Spain borders Portugal, to the south, it borders Gibraltar (a British overseas territory) and Morocco, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla). To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, the "rocks" ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. In the northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.

There are several competing hypothesis as to the origin of the Roman name "Hispania", the root of the Spanish name España and the English name Spain. These hypothesis are built on the most slender of evidence and with much supposition and so must be treated as mere speculation.

Politics

Template:Morepolitics

Spain is a constitutional monarchy, with a hereditary monarch and a bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generales. The executive branch consists of a Council of Ministers presided over by the President of Government (comparable to a prime minister), proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative elections.

The legislative branch is made up of the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) with 350 members, elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional representation to serve four-year terms, and a Senate or Senado with 259 seats of which 208 are directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to also serve four-year terms.

Spain is, at present, what is called a State of Autonomies, formally unitary but, in fact, functioning as a highly decentralized Federation of Autonomous Communities, each one with slightly different levels of self-government. The little differences within this system are due to the fact that the devolution process from the centre to the periphery was a process initially thought to be asymmetrical, granting a higher degree of self government only to those autonomous governments ruled by nationalist parties (namely Catalonia and the Basque Country) who were much more vocal in the matter and seeking a more federalist kind of relationship with the rest of Spain. Conversely the rest of Autonomous Communities would have a lower self-government. This pattern of asymmetrical devolution has been described as a coconstitutionalism and the devolution process adopted by the United Kingdom since 1997 shares traits with it.

However, as years passed, the Autonomous Communities which in the beginning were thought to have a lower profile have caught up in terms of self-government with the nationalist ruled Autonomous communities and the gap in terms of self-government is not that wide anymore.

In the end, Spain is regarded as probably the most decentralized State in Europe at the present moment, with all of its different territories managing locally their Health and Education systems (just to mention some aspects of the public budget) and with some other territories (the Basque Country and Navarre) even managing their own public finances without hardly any presence of the Spanish central government in this regard or, in the case of Catalonia and the Basque Country, equipped with their own, fully operative and completely autonomous, police corps which widely replaces the State police functions in these territories (see Mossos d'Esquadra and Ertzaintza).

The Government of Spain has been involved in a long-running campaign against Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), a terrorist organization founded in 1959 in opposition to Franco and dedicated to promoting Basque independence through violent means. They consider themselves a guerrilla organization while they are actually listed as a terrorist organization by both the European Union and the United States in their watchlists on the matter. Although the current nationalist led Basque Autonomous government does not endorse any kind of violence, their different approaches as to how to terminate ETA and their different approaches to the separatist movement are a source of tension between the central and Basque governments.

Initially ETA targeted primarily Spanish security forces, military personnel and Spanish Government officials. As the security forces and prominent politicians improved their own security, ETA increasingly focused its attacks on the tourist seasons (scaring tourists was seen as a way of putting pressure on the government, given the sector's importance to the economy, although no tourists were injured) and local government officials in the Basque Country. The group carried out numerous bombings against Spanish Government facilities and economic targets, including a car bomb assassination attempt on then-opposition leader Aznar in 1995, in which his armoured car was destroyed but he was unhurt. The Spanish Government attributes over 800 deaths to ETA during its campaign of rebellion.

On 17 May 2005, all the parties in the Congress of Deputies, except the PP, passed the Central Government's motion giving approval to the beginning of peace talks with ETA, without making political concessions and with the requirement that it give up its weapons. PSOE, CiU, ERC, PNV, IU-ICV, CC and the mixed group —BNG, CHA, EA y NB— supported it with a total of 192 votes, while the 147 PP parliamentarians objected. ETA declared a "permanent cease-fire" that came into force on March 24 2006. In the years leading up to the permanent cease-fire, the government had had more success in controlling ETA, due in part to increased security cooperation with French authorities.

On February 20 2005, Spain became the first country to allow its people to vote on the European Union constitution that was signed in October 2004. The rules state that if any country rejects the constitution then the constitution will be declared void. Despite a very low participation (42%), the final result was very strongly in affirmation of the constitution, making Spain the first country to approve the constitution via referendum (Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia approved it before Spain, but they did not hold referendums).

Administrative divisions

Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas) and 2 African autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas) - (Ceuta and Melilla. These autonomous communities are subdivided into 50 provinces (provincias).

Traditionally and historically, some provinces are also divided into comarcas (singular comarca). A comarca is roughly equivalent to a US "county" or an English district. In some of the regions (e.g. Catalonia) their borders are clear so they are easy to identify. In some other (e.g. Extremadura) their legal status is not very formal so they rather correspond to natural areas (valleys, sierres and so on).

The lowest administrative division of Spain is the municipality (municipio).

Geography

Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tajo, the Ebro, the Duero, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir. Alluvial plains are found along the coast, the largest of which is that of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia, in the east there are alluvial plains with medium rivers like Segura, Júcar and Turia. Spain is bound to the south and east by Mediterranean Sea (containing the Balearic Islands), to the north by the Cantabrian Sea and to its west by the Atlantic Ocean, where the Canary Islands off the African coast are found. Spain shares borders with Andorra 63.7 km, France 623 km, Gibraltar 1.2 km, Portugal 1,214 km and Morocco 6.3 km .

Due to Spain's own geographical situation which allows only its northern part to be in the way of the Jet Stream's typical path and due to its own orographic conditions, its climate is extremely diverse. It can be roughly divided in the following areas:

• The Northern and Eastern Mediterranean coast (Catalonia, Northern half of the Valencian Community and the Balearic islands): Warm to hot summers with relatively mild to cool winters. Precipitation averaging 600 mm (23.6 in) a year. These show an average Mediterranean climate.
• The South East Mediterranean coast (Alicante, Murcia and Almería): Hot summers and mild to cool winters. Very dry, virtually sub-desertic, rainfall as low as 150 mm (5.9 in) a year in the Cabo de Gata which is reported to be the driest place in Europe. These areas qualify mostly as Semiarid climate in terms of precipitation.
• Southern Mediterranean coast (Málaga and Granada's coastal areas): Warm summers, very mild winters. Average yearly temperatures close to 20 degrees Celsius (68°F) and wet. Close to Subtropical climate.
• The Guadalquivir valley (Seville, Cordoba): Very hot and dry summers and mild winters. Relatively dry climate.
• South West Atlantic coast (Cadiz, Huelva): Pleasant summers, very mild and temperate winters. Relatively wet climate.
• The inner land plateau (Madrid, Valladolid, Toledo) and the Ebro Valley (Zaragoza): Cold winters (depending mostly on altitude) and hot summers, close to the Continental climate. Relatively dry weather (400-600mm or 15.7 - 23.6 in per year).
• Northern Atlantic coast or "Green Spain" (Galicia, Asturias, Coastal Basque country): A very wet climate (averaging 1000 mm. or 39.4 in a year, some spots over 1200 mm. or 47.2 in), with mild summers and mild to cool winters. These show mostly an Oceanic climate.
• The Pyrenees: overall wet weather with cool summers and cold winters, the highest part of it has an Alpine climate.
• The Canary Islands: Subtropical climate in terms of temperature, being these mild and stable (18 °C to 24 °C; 64 °F to 75 °F) throughout the year. Desertic in the Eastern islands and moister in the westernmost ones.

At 194,884 mi² (504,782 km²), Spain is the world's 51st-largest country (after Thailand). It is comparable in size to Turkmenistan, and somewhat larger than the US state of California.

Territorial disputes

Territories claimed by Spain

Spain has called for the return of Gibraltar, a small but strategic British overseas territory which lies near the Peninsula's southernmost tip, in the Eastern side of the Strait of Gibraltar. It was conquered during the War of the Spanish Succession in 1704 and was ceded to Britain in perpetuity in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. An overwhelming majority of Gibraltar's 30,000 inhabitants want to remain British, as they have repeatedly proven in referenda on the issue. The UN resolutions (2231 (XXI) and 2353 (XXII)) call on the UK and Spain to reach an agreement to resolve their differences over Gibraltar, while Spain does not recognize this border and so it is ordinarily kept under strict traffic scrutiny (in the recent past it was often closed as a means to put pressure to Gibraltar, since its economy is partially dependent on Spanish goods and workers).

Moreover, the exact tracing of the demarcation line established by the Treaty of Utrecht is disputed between both sides (Spain claims that the UK is also occupying a tract of land around the airport which was not originally included in the Treaty provisions).

Gibraltar is officially a non-self governing territory or colony according to the UN original definition; in this regard, article 103 of the UN Charter states, universally speaking, that the right of self-determination of the people from the non-self governing territory should be the paramount and overriding principle. To this, the Spanish position objects that it would overrule the only other legal document available on the matter, the Treaty of Utrecht, which states that the area must return to Spain should the UK renounce to it.

Spanish territories claimed by other countries

Morocco claims the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Vélez, Alhucemas, Chafarinas, and Perejil islands, all on the Northern coast of Africa. Morocco points out that those territories were obtained when Morocco could not do anything to prevent it and has never signed treaties ceding them, but Morocco did not yet exist in the 14th and 15th century when these places became Spanish possessions. Spain claims that these territories are integral parts of Spain and have been Spanish or linked to Spain since before the Islamic invasion of Spain in 711; the Ceuta area (including the islet of Perejil) returned to Spanish rule in 1415 and the rest did so only a few years after the conquest of Granada in 1492. Spain claims that Morocco's only claim on these territories is merely geographical. Parallelism with Egyptian ownership of the Sinai (in Asia) or Turkish ownership of Istanbul (in Europe) is often used to support the Spanish position.

Portugal does not recognize Spain's sovereignty over the territory of Olivenza. The Portuguese claim that the Treaty of Vienna (1815), to which Spain was a signatory, stipulated return of the territory to Portugal. Spain alleges that the Treaty of Vienna left the provisions of the Treaty of Badajoz (1801) intact.

Economy

According to World Bank, Spain's economy is the eigth biggest worldwide and the fifth largest in Europe. As of 2005, GDP was valued at $1.12 Trillion, just after Italy and before Canada (see List of countries by GDP (nominal)).

Spain's mixed economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 90% of that of the four leading West European economies and slightly above the European Union average. The centre-right government of former Prime Minister Aznar worked successfully to gain admission to the first group of countries launching the European single currency, the euro, on 1 January 1999. The Aznar administration continued to advocate liberalization, privatization, and deregulation of the economy and introduced some tax reforms to that end. Unemployment fell steadily both under the Aznar and Zapatero administration. It affects now 7.6% of the labour force (October 2006) having fallen from a high of 20% and above in the early 1990s. It also compares favourably to the other large European countries, most notably, Germany with an unemployment of approximately 12%. Growth of 2.4% in 2003 was satisfactory given the background of a faltering European economy, and has steadied since at an annualized rate of about 3.3% in mid 2005 and 3.5% in the first quarter, 3,7% in the second quarter and 3,8% in the third quarter of 2006. There is a widespread concern that the growth is too concentrated upon a few sectors (mainly residential building and those related to it). The current Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero has pointed out as matters to be addressed during his administration plans to reduce government intervention in business, combat tax fraud, and support innovation, research and development, but also intends to reintroduce labour market regulations that had been scrapped by the Aznar government. Adjusting to the monetary and other economic policies of an integrated Europe — and reducing unemployment — will pose challenges to Spain over the next few years.

There is general concern that Spain's model of economic growth (based largely on mass tourism, the construction industry, and manufacturing sectors) is faltering and may prove unsustainable over the long term. The first report of the Observatory on Sustainability ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) — published in 2005 and funded by Spain's Ministry of the Environment and Alcalá University — reveals that the country's per capita GDP grew by 25% over the last ten years, while greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 45% since 1990. Although Spain's population grew by less than 5% between 1990 and 2000, urban areas expanded by no less than 25% over the same period. Meanwhile, Spain's energy consumption has doubled over the last 20 years and is currently rising by 6% per annum. This is particularly worrying for a country whose dependence on imported oil (meeting roughly 80% of Spain's energy needs) is one of the greatest in the EU. Large-scale housing and tourism development are placing severe strain on local land and water resources. Meanwhile, global warming paints a bleak future for parts of Spain for the next century, with the potential to turn areas which already are fairly arid into semi-desertic. The prospects for Spain's tourist industry are also dire. Recent developments to deal with the country's growing water shortage include the building of reverse osmosis plants along the Spanish Costas, although these heavy energy using facilities are unlikely to supply little over 1% of Spain's total water needs, these plants are an important contribution to localised water supply. Future water shortages are likely to be made even more acute by the building golf courses along Spain's Mediterranean coast. Other perennial weak points of Spain's economy include one of the lowest rates of investment in Research and Development, and an education system slated in OECD reports as one of the worst in Western Europe. Many manufacturing jobs are being lost to cheaper workforce countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.

On the brighter side, the Spanish economy is credited for having avoided the virtual zero growth rate of some of its largest partners in the EU (namely France and Germany) by the late 90's and beginning of the 21st century, in a process which started with former Prime Minister Aznar's liberalization and deregulation reforms aiming to reduce the State's role in the market place. Thus in 1997, Spain started an economic cycle - which keeps going as of 2006 - marked by an outstanding economic growth, with figures around 3%, often well over this rate. In fact, the country's economy has created more than half of all the new jobs in the European Union over the past five years.

This has narrowed steadily the economic gap between Spain and its leading partners in the EU over this period. Hence, the Spanish economy has been regarded lately as one of the most dynamic within the EU, even able to replace the leading role of much larger economies like the aforementioned, thus subsequently attracting significant amounts of foreign investment.

Demographics

Spain's population density, at 87.8/km² (220/sq. mile), is lower than that of most Western European countries and its distribution along the country is very unequal. With the exception of the region surrounding the capital, Madrid, the most populated areas lie around the coast.

The population of Spain doubled during the twentieth century, due to the spectacular demographic boom by the 60's and early 70's. Then, after the birth rate plunged in the 80's and Spain's population became stalled, a new population increase started based initially in the return of many Spanish who emigrated to other European countries during the 70's and, more recently, it has been boosted by the large figures of foreign immigrants, mostly from Latin America (38.75% of them), Eastern Europe (16.33%), Maghreb (14.99%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (4.08%). Also some important pockets of population coming from other countries in the European Union are found (20.77% of the foreign residents), specially along the Mediterranean costas and Balearic islands, where many choose to live their retirement or even telework. There has also been a steady influx of English, French, German, and Dutch immigrants since the 70's. However, the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural interior to the industrial cities during the 60's and 70's. No fewer than eleven of Spain's fifty provinces saw an absolute decline in population over the century.

Immigration in Spain

According to the Spanish government there were 3.7 million foreign residents in Spain in 2005; independent estimates put the figure at 4.8 million or 15.1% of total population (Red Cross, World Disasters Report 2006). According to residence permit data for 2005, around 500,000 were Moroccan, another half a million were Ecuadorian, more than 200,000 were Romanians and 260,000 were Colombian. Other important foreign communities are British (8.09%), French (8.03%), Argentine (6.10%), German (5.58%) and Bolivian (2.63%). In 2005, a regularization programme increased the legal immigrant population by 700,000 people. Since 2000 Spain has experienced high population growth as a result of immigration flows, despite a birth rate that is only half of the replacement level. This sudden and ongoing inflow of immigrants, particularly those arriving clandestinely by sea, has caused noticeable social tensions.

Spain currently has the second highest immigration rates within the EU, just after Cyprus, and the second highest absolute net migration in the World (after the USA). This can be explained by a number of reasons including its geographical position, the porosity of its borders, the large size of its submerged economy and the strength of the agricultural and construction sectors which demand more low cost labour than can be offered by the national workforce. In fact, booming Spain has been Europe's largest absorber of migrants for the past six years, with its immigrant population increasing fourfold as 2.8 million people have arrived. Spectacular growth in Spain's immigrant population comes as the country's economy has created more than half of all the new jobs in the European Union over the past five years.

On the other hand this unprecedented wave of immigration has put downward pressure on the wages of Spanish born workers in sectors which formerly were in need of a bigger work force supply such as construction and agriculture, also in a number of service sector jobs - at a time of booming residential prices and rising rents (Spain traditionally has had a very high rate of home ownership). While it is thought that this massive arrival of immigrants has actually reinvigorated the national economy, it could eventually end up in aggravated social tensions in the event of economic deceleration.

Most populous metropolitan regions

1. Madrid 5,946,572
2. Barcelona 5,315,758
3. Valencia 1,623,724
4. Sevilla 1,317,098
5. Málaga 1,074,074
6. Bilbao 946,829

Identities

The Spanish Constitution of 1978, in its second article, recognizes historic entities ("nationalities“, a carefully chosen word in order to avoid the more politically loaded "nations") and regions, inside the unity of the Spanish nation. Spain's identity is for some people more an overlap of different regional identities than a sole Spanish identity. Indeed, some of the regional identities may be even in conflict with the Spanish one.

In particular, a large proportion of Catalans, Basques and Galicians, quite frequently identify, respectively, primarily with Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia, with Spain only second or not at all. For example, according to the last CIS survey, 44% of Basques identify themselves first as Basques (only 8% first as Spaniards); 40% of Catalans do so with Catalonia (20% identify firstly with Spain), and 32% Galicians with Galicia (9% with Spain). The majority of these groups though, identify both as Basques, Catalans or Galicians and Spaniards at the same time.

Almost all communities have a majority of people identifying as much with Spain as with the Autonomous Community (except Madrid, where Spain is the primary identity, and Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia, and the Balearics, where people tend to identify more with their Autonomous Community). It is this last feature of "shared identity" between the more local level or Autonomous Community and the Spanish level which makes the identity question in Spain complex and far from univocal.

Languages

The Spanish Constitution, although affirming the sovereignty of the Spanish Nation, recognizes historical nationalities.

Castilian (called both Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in the language itself) is an official language throughout Spain, but other regional languages are also spoken, and are the primary languages in some of their respective geographies. Without mentioning them by name, the Spanish Constitution recognizes the possibility of regional languages being co-official in their respective autonomous communities. The following languages are co-official with Spanish according to the appropriate Autonomy Statutes.

• Catalan ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) in Catalonia ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), the Balearic Islands ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), parts of Valencia ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) (as Valencian). Not officially recognized in La Franja and Carxe.
• Basque ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) in Basque Country ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), and parts of Navarre ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). Basque is not known to be related to any other language.
• Galician ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) in Galicia ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). Not officially recognized in Asturias and Leon.

Catalan, Galician and Castilian are all descended from Latin and some of them have their own dialects, some championed as separate languages by their speakers. A particular case is Valencian, the name given to a variety of Catalan, that also has the co-official language status recognized in Autonomous Community of Valencia.

There are also some other surviving Romance minority languages: Asturian / Leonese, in Asturias and parts of Leon, Zamora and Salamanca, and the Extremaduran in Caceres and Salamanca, both descendants of the historical Astur-Leonese; the Aragonese or fabla in part of Aragon; the fala, spoken in three villages of Extremadura; and some Portuguese dialectal towns in Extremadura and Castile-Leon. Unlike Catalan, Galician, and Basque, these do not have any official status.

The Andalusian dialect (also called andaluz) of European Spanish is spoken in Andalusia. There are several phonetic differences from Castilian Spanish, some of which are reflected in Andalusian-influenced Latin American Spanish. This differences can be seen in the phonology as well as in the intonation and vocabulary.

In the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coasts and the islands, English is widely spoken by tourists, foreign residents and tourism workers. On the other side, recent African illegal immigrants and large minority of their descendants speaks the official European languages of their homelands (whether standard Portuguese, English, French, or its Creoles.)

Minority groups

Since the 16th century, the most famous minority group in the country have been the Gitanos, a Roma group.

Spain has a number of black African-blooded people — who are descendants of populations from former colonies (especially Equatorial Guinea) but, much more important than those in numbers, immigrants from several Sub-Saharan and Caribbean countries who have been recently settling in Spain. There are also sizeable numbers of Asian-Spaniards, most of whom are Chinese, Filipino, Middle Eastern, Pakistani and Indian origins; Spaniards of Latin American descent are sizeable as well and a fast growing segment. Other growing groups are Britons and Germans and other immigrants from western and eastern Europe.

The important Jewish population of Spain was either expelled or forced to convert in 1492, with the dawn of the Spanish Inquisition. After the 19th century, some Jews have established themselves in Spain as a result of migration from former Spanish Morocco, escape from Nazi repression and immigration from Argentina. Currently, Melilla shows the highest ratio of Jews (and Muslims) in Spain. The Spanish law allows Sephardi Jews to claim Spanish citizenship.

A sizeable and increasing number of Spanish citizens also descend from these communities, as Spain applies jus soli and provides special measures for immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries to obtain Spanish citizenship.

Religion

Roman Catholicism is the most popular religion in the country. According to several sources (Spanish official polls and others), about 76% self-identify as Catholics, about 2 % with another religious faith, and about 19% identify as non-believers or atheists. Many Spaniards identify themselves as Catholics because they were baptized, and many do not participate in religious services. A study conducted in October 2006 by the Spanish Centre of Sociological Investigations shows that from the 76% of Spaniards who identify as Catholics or other religious faith, 54% hardly ever or never go to church, 15% go to church some times a year, 10% some time per month and 19% every Sunday or multiple times per week. About 22% of the whole Spanish population attend religious services at least once a month.

Evidence of the secular nature of contemporary Spain can be seen in the widespread support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain — over 70% of Spaniards support gay marriage according to a 2004 study by the Centre of Sociological Investigations. Indeed, in June 2005 a bill was passed by 187 votes to 147 to allow gay marriage, making Spain the third country in the European Union to allow same-sex couples to marry after Belgium and the Netherlands. This vote was split along conservative-liberal lines, with PSOE and other left-leaning parties supporting the measure and PP against it. Proposed changes to the divorce laws to make the process quicker and to eliminate the need for a guilty party are also popular.

There are also many Protestant denominations, all of them with less than 50,000 members, and about 20,000 Mormons. Evangelism has been better received among Gypsies than among the general population; pastors have integrated flamenco music in their liturgy. Taken together, all self-described "Evangelicals" slightly surpass Jehovah's Witnesses (105,000) in number. Other religious faiths represented in Spain include the Bahá'í Community.

The recent waves of immigration, especially during and after the 90's, have led to an increasing number of Muslims, who have about 1 million members. Muslims had ceased to live in Spain for centuries, ever since the Reconquista, when they were given the ultimatum of either convert to Catholicism or leave the country. By the 16th century, most of them had left the Spanish kingdom. However, the colonial expansion over Northern and Western Africa during the 19th and 20th centuries supposed that large numbers of Muslim populations (those in the Spanish Morocco and the Sahara Occidental) were again under Spanish administration, with a minority of them getting full citizenship. Nowadays, Islam is the second largest religion in Spain, after Roman Catholicism, accounting for approximately 3% of the total population. Hindus and Sikhs account for less than 0.3%.

Along with these waves of immigration, an important number of Latin American people, who are usually strong Catholic practitioners, have helped the Catholic Church to recover part of the congregations that regular masses (Sunday mass) used to have in the sixties and seventies and that was lost in the eighties.

Since the expulsion of the Sephardim in 1492, Judaism was practically nonexistent until the 19th century, when Jews were again permitted to enter the country. Currently there are around 50,000 Jews in Spain, all arrivals in the past century and accounting less than 1% of the total number of inhabitants. There are also many Spaniards (in Spain and abroad) who claim Jewish ancestry to the Conversos, and still practise certain customs. Spain is believed to have been about 8% Jewish on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition.

Over the past thirty years, Spain has become a more secularized society as the number of believers has decreased significantly. For those who do believe, the degree of accordance and practice to their religion is diverse.

Most important media

National TV channels (analogue)

Regional TV channels

DVB-T channels

Radio stations

Newspapers

International rankings

• Reporters Without Borders world-wide press freedom index 2002: Rank 40 out of 139 countries.

• The Economist Intelligence Units worldwide quality-of-life index 2005: Rank 10 out of 111 countries (above countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France)

• Nation Master's list by economic importance: Rank 9 of 25 countries, only surpassed by G-8 members (except Russia) and Australia.

• Nation Master's list by technological achievement: Rank 18 of 68 countries.

See also

• Autonomous communities of Spain
• Civil unions in Spain
• Communications in Spain
• Culture of Spain
• Education in Spain
• Foreign relations of Spain
• Instituto Cervantes
• Languages of Spain
• List of cities in Spain
• List of municipalities in Spain
• List of Spanish birds
• List of Spanish national parks
• Military of Spain
• Music of Spain
• Places of sovereignty in North Africa
• Public holidays in Spain
• Same-sex marriage in Spain
• Spain under Franco
• Spanish empire
• Spanish heraldry
• Spanish nobility
• Spanish people
• Sports in Spain
• Tourism in Spain
• Transportation in Spain
  • SEAT automobile
  • Biscuter automobile

References and notes

1. Unofficially in Template:Lang-ca; Template:Lang-eu; Template:Lang-gl; Asturian: Reinu d'España; Template:Lang-oc. In some autonomous communities, Catalan/Valencian, Basque, and Galician languages are co-official; in the Val d'Aran, the Aranese dialect of Occitan is co-official.
2. Rank by nominal GDP: 9 (2006)
3. OECD figures
4. Official report on Spanish recent Macroeconomics, including tables and graphics
5. Instituto Nacional de Estadística
6. Eurostat - Population in Europe in 2005
7. Ethnologue report of Spain
8. Centre of Sociological Investigations, questions 32 and 32a
9. Centre of Sociological Investigations

Further reading

• John Hickman and Chris Little, "Seat/Vote Proportionality in Romanian and Spanish Parliamentary Elections", Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Volume 2, Number 2, November 2000.
• Harold Raley, "The Spirit of Spain", Houston: Halcyon Press 2001. (ISBN 0-9706054-9-8)
• George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

Other images

External links

Overviews Spain: CIA World Factbook entry (Updated on May 16 2006; info as available on January 1 2005) Encyclopaedia Britannica's Spain Portal site Maps of Spain: satellite images, relief maps, outlines and themed maps of Spanish autonomous communities, provinces and municipalities iberianature a guide to the environment, geography, climate, wildlife, natural history and landscape of Spain Spain: The Economist Country Briefings entry (current) This image is available from the United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division under the digital ID {{{id}}} This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Misplaced Pages:Copyrights for more information. 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