Spain (Spanish: Espa?a, pronounced: [es'pa?a]), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de Espa?a) isa country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.

Its mainland is bordered to the southand east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar;to the north by France, Andorra,and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.

With a land area of 504.712 km2, Spain, after France is the second biggest country in Western Europe. With an average altitude of 650 meters it is alsothe second highest country in Europe, following Switzerland.

Spain is run with a parliamentarian democracyconjoined with a constitutional monarchical regime. Since 1986 it has been amember of the EU and a member of NATO since 1982.

History

In 1100 BC, the Phoenicianssettled on Spanish soil. They were followed by the Celts and the Greeks. Spain then wentunder the dominion of the Carthaginian’s. In the year 202 BC the Roman’s drovethe Carthaginian’s to the Iberian Peninsula.The Roman Empire, after this date, united Spain and at the same time theymade Christianity accepted.

In the 5th centuryAD, Spainwas the target of attack for Germanic tribes. The Sarmatian Alan’s, Suevi, theVandals and the Visigoth’s all took over Spain in respectful order. The Visigoth’s held on to Spain for a long time and when they acceptedChristianity, they were responsible for its spread over Spain.

Andalusia Age

In the 8th century, nearly allof the Iberian Peninsula was conquered (711–718) by largely Moorish Muslim armies fromNorth Africa. In the 11th century, the Muslim holdings fracturedinto rival Taifa kingdoms, allowing the small Christian states theopportunity to greatly enlarge their territories.

Age of Enlightenment

In 1492 the last bastion ofthe Muslims, The Granada Kingdom, was destroyed. In the same year ChristopherColumbus went on his famous voyage on which he discovered America, withthe Spanish king’s financial support. This voyage allowedSpain to createthe biggest colony empire in the world. Spanish soldiers punished the nativeswho welcomed them with gifts and open arms with slavery, torture and genocide.

One of Christopher Columbus’s close friends’son and witness to the evildoing unto the natives; Bartoleme de Las Casas wrotein his 1542 book; “How were the Native Americans destroyed?”: “The NativeAmericans were justified in their fight against the Christians, of this I amcertain. On the other hand the Christians have not had one single justifiedbattle against them. On the contrary, their battles were as evil andunjustified as could have been dealt out by no other despot.”

In the year 1588, the SpanishArmada was defeated by the English fleet and caused the steady decline of Spain with theaddition of throne wars and religious infighting. In 1640, Portugal and in 1714, lands across various partof Europe were lost along with Gibraltar. Atthe start of the 19th century, all of Spain’scolonies in Americagained independence.

WW1 andthe Republic

Spain's neutrality in World War I allowed it to become a supplier of materialfor both sides to its great advantage, prompting an economic boom in Spain. Theoutbreak of Spanish influenza in Spain andelsewhere, along with a major economic slowdown in the postwar period, hit Spainparticularly hard, and the country went into debt. A major worker's strike wassuppressed in 1919.

The Second SpanishRepublic wasthe government of Spain between April 141931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, ledby General Francisco Franco.

The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimedwhen King AlfonsoXIII leftthe country following municipalelections inwhich republican candidates won the majority of votes. Its government went intoexile on April 1, 1939, when the last of the loyalist Republican forcessurrendered to rebel forces (calling themselves nacionales) led by Generalissimo Franco at the end ofthe Spanish Civil War.

A new left-wing politicaldominion was born at the end of all this.

Economy

Spain's capitalist mixed economy is the twelfth largest worldwide and the fifth largest in the European Union, as well as the Eurozone's fourth largest.

The Spanish economy, in 2007, grew3.7%, leaving behind all other G7 countries.

In the year 1999, Spain abandonedthe peseta and accepted the Euro with all the other EU countries.
There are 22.19 millionworkers in Spain’sworkforce. 3.5% of who work in agriculture, 29.8 in the industry andthe rest work in the services sector. Spain's government forecast the unemployment rate would rise to 16% in 2009.
Population

Spain has 47,150,819 inhabitants. The population continues to grow at a rateof 0.096% annually and there are 89.6 people every square kilometer. The mostdensely populated province is Madrid.

The population of Spain doubledduring the twentieth century, but the pattern of growth was extremely unevendue to large-scale internal migration from the rural interior to the industrialcities, a phenomenon which happened later than in other Western Europeancountries. No fewer than eleven of Spain's fifty provinces saw anabsolute decline in population over the century.