Spain

Spain

Spain, a country occupying the greater part of the Iberian Peninsula, and bounded on the north by the Bay of Biscay, France, and Andorra, and on the east by the Mediterranean Sea. The Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and the

Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa are governed as provinces of Spain. Also, Spain administers two small exclaves in Morocco—Ceuta and Melilla. The area of Spain, including the African and insular territories, is 194,885 sq mi. Madrid is the capital and largest city.

Population

The Spanish people are essentially a mixture of the indigenous peoples of the

Iberian Peninsula with the successive peoples who conquered the peninsula and occupied it for extended periods. These added ethnologic elements include the

Romans, a Mediterranean people, and the Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths, Teutonic peoples. Semitic elements are also present.

Population Characteristics

The population of Spain at the 1991 census was 38,872,268. The estimate for 1995 is 39,276,000, giving the country an overall density of about 202 per sq mi.

Spain is increasingly urban, with more than 80 percent of the population in towns and cities.

Principal Cities

The capital and largest city is Madrid (population, greater city, 1991,

3,010,492), also the capital of Madrid autonomous region; the second largest city, chief port, and commercial center is Barcelona, capital of Barcelona province and Catalonia region. Other important cities include Valencia, capital of Valencia province and Valencia region, a manufacturing and railroad center;

Seville, a cultural center; Saragossa, and Bilbao (369,839), a busy port.

Religion

Roman Catholicism is professed by about 97 percent of the population. The country is divided into 11 metropolitan and 52 suffragan sees. In addition, the archdioceses of Barcelona and Madrid are directly responsible to the Holy See.

Formerly, Roman Catholicism was the established church, but the 1978 constitution decreed that Spain shall have no state religion, while recognizing the role of the Roman Catholic church in Spanish society. There are small communities of Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.

Higher Education

Spanish institutions of higher education enrolled nearly 1.3 million students in the early 1990s. The major universities of Spain include the University of

Madrid, the Polytech...

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...ed the ETA, which stepped up its terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, Catalans pushed for greater control over local affairs, and demanded greater language rights. The use of Catalan and nationalist sentiments increased in and around Barcelona. The Galicians consistently distanced themselves from

Madrid, though ethnoregionalism remained weaker in Galicia than in either

Catalonia or Basque Country. Suárez governed through consensus, consulting all nonextremist parties when formulating basic policy. Catalonia and the Basque

Country were granted home rule, and their languages were officially recognized.

The constitution extended similar privileges to 15 other regions. Thus, the movement toward political centralization begun by Ferdinand and Isabella some

500 years earlier was reversed, and a “Spain of autonomous communities” was created. In recent years, concerns over Spain's environmental problems have grown. The country has experienced increased air-pollution problems in Madrid and along the northeastern coast, water pollution in agricultural and coastal areas, and soil erosion. Controversies arose over rapid development along the Mediterranean coast and threats to scenic attractions.