Spain (Spanish: España (help·info), IPA: [es'paɲa]) or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España),[5] is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish mainland is bordered to the south and east almost entirely by the Mediterranean Sea (except for a tiny land boundary with Gibraltar); to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. With an area of 504,030 km², Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe (behind France) and with an average altitude of 650 m, the second highest country in Europe (behind Switzerland).

Spain is a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy and has been a member of the European Union since 1986. It is a developed country with the eighth largest economy in the world and fifth largest in the EU, based on nominal GDP.
History

Main article: History of Spain

Summary

Spain is a key site when it comes to studying both the arrival of the first hominids recorded in Europe and the prehistoric stage of this continent. Under the Roman Empire, Hispania flourished and became one of the empire's most important regions. During the early Middle Age it came under Germanic rule. Later, nearly the entire peninsula came under Muslim rulers. Through a long process Christian kingdoms in the north gradually rolled back Muslim rule which was finally extinguished in 1492 as well as expelling or killing the Jews or forcing many to convert. That year Columbus reached the Americas, the beginnings of a global empire. Spain became the strongest kingdom in Europe in the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries but continued wars and other problems eventually led to a diminished status. In the middle decades of the 20th century it came under a dictatorship, under which it went through many years of stagnation and then a spectacular economic revival. Democracy was recovered in 1978 under the form of a constitutional monarchy. In 1986 it joined the European Union and has experienced an economic and cultural renaissance.

Prehistory and pre-Roman peoples in the Iberian Peninsula

Main article: Prehistoric Iberia

Archeological research at Atapuerca indicates that the Iberian Peninsula was peopled more than a million years ago.[7] Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula through the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The best known artifacts of these prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the Altamira cave of Cantabria in northern Spain, which were created about 15,000 BCE. Furthermore, archeological evidence in places like Los Millares in Almería and in El Argar in Murcia suggests that developed cultures existed in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

The two main historical peoples of the peninsula were the Iberians and the Celts, the former inhabiting the Mediterranean side from the northeast to the southwest, the latter inhabiting the Atlantic side, in the north and northwest part of the peninsula. In the inner part of the peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, known as Celtiberian. In addition, Basques occupied the western area of the Pyrenees mountains. Other ethnic groups existed along the southern coastal areas of present day Andalusia. Among these southern groups there grew the earliest urban culture in the Iberian Peninsula, that of the semi-mythical southern city of Tartessos (perhaps pre-1100 BC) near the location of present-day Cádiz. The flourishing trade in gold and silver between the people of Tartessos and Phoenicians and Greeks is documented in the history of Strabo and in the biblical book of king Solomon. Between about 500 BC and 300 BC, the seafaring Phoenicians and Greeks founded trading colonies all along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Carthaginians briefly took control of much of the Mediterranean coast in the course of the Punic
Wars, until they were eventually defeated and
replaced by the Romans...
replaced by the Romans.[8]