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Events and Festivals

January

Febraury

The Carnival of Cádiz is one of the best-known carnivals in the world. The whole city participates in the carnival for more than two weeks each year, and the presence of this fiesta is almost constant in the city because of the rehearsals, recitals, and contests held throughout the year. It is a widely-held opinion that the city of Cádiz is blessed with the wittiest people in Spain, so it is not surprising that the main characteristics of the carnival in Cádiz are the acerbic criticisms, the droll plays on words, stinging sarcasm, and the irreverence of parody. While some carnivals, elsewhere in the world, stress the spectacular, the glamorous, or the scandalous in costumes, Cádiz distinguishes itself with the sheer cleverness and fertile imagination of its carnival attire. It is traditional to paint the face as a humble substitute for a mask. It is easy to get involved in the fiesta even if one is a visitor and knows no Spanish. On Saturday, everyone wears a costume, which, many times, is related to the most polemical aspects of the news. However, the Carnival of Cádiz is most famous for the satirical groups of performers called chirigotas. Their music and their lyrics are at the center of the carnival.

March

Holy Week (Semana Santa) normally takes place in March, and occasionally in April. The Passion of Christ, or Easter Week, known in Spain as Semana Santa is the most important celebration in the country. The festivities begin with the Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) and end with Lunes de Pascua (Easter Monday). It is a celebration of life itself and the whole country comes alive. The Catholic Church in Spain is passionate about Easter celebrations.

April

The Seville Spring Fair, La Feria de abril de Sevilla, is held in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain. The fair generally begins two weeks after the Semana Santa, or Easter Holy Week. The fair officially begins at midnight on Monday, and runs six days, ending on the following Sunday. During past fairs, however, many activities have begun on the Saturday prior to the official opening. Each day the fiesta begins with the parade of carriages and riders, at midday, carrying Seville's leading citizens which make their way to the bullring, La Real Maestranza, where the bullfighters and breeders meet. For the duration of the fair, the fairgrounds and a vast area on the far bank of the Guadalquivir River are totally covered in rows of casetas (individual decorated marquee tents which are temporarily built on the fairground). Some of these casetas belong to the prominent families of Seville, some to groups of friends, clubs, trade associations or political parties. From around nine at night until six or seven the following morning, at first in the streets and later only within each caseta, you will find crowds partying and dancing "Sevillanas", drinking Jerez sherry, or manzanilla wine, and eating tapas.

May

The Jerez Horse Fair (Feria de Caballo) is an exciting and lively event that brings the entire city to the Gonzalo Hontoria Fairgrounds, which cover 52,000 square metres, giving ample space for the finest horses of Jerez as synonymous with the city as sherry and flamenco, to show off their moves to the crowds who flock to the casetas which, unlike Seville's, are open to the public, and other attractions. The history of the Jerez Horse Fair goes back over 500 years, to the commercial livestock fairs that were established in April and September, in the time when Jerez was just a small town back during the reign of Alfonso X El Sabio (the Wise). In May the Spanish Moto Grand Prix normally also takes place in Jerez, attracting bikers from all over Europe, with enormous crowds to the city centre and the province in general.

June

July

July is the most important month for bullfighting in El Puerto Santa María.

Bullfighting in El Puerto de Santa María, is one of the strongest and deeply rooted traditions in Spain. El Puerto de Santa Maria has an old prestige for bullfights. Already before the times of Pepe Hillo or Pedro Romero from Ronda, it had well rooted its fame for bullfighting in the city: the old bullring in Galeras Square which replaced the older one of scaffoldings in Polvorista Square and that was an advance of wooden bullrings in the same place where today we find the stone, iron and brick bullring, built at the end of the 19th century; one of the most beautiful bullrings in all of Spain.

The building is a regular polygon of 60 sides, with a diameter of 99.8 metres; this surface area is distributed as follows; an external gallery, above a second and third gallery where the royal and the presidential boxes are found and the covered stands, also the 16 stone seated sections known as "Tendidos"; it has a capacity for over twelve thousand people. The arena is 60 meters in diameter, one of the widest that exists. It is separated from the public by a two meter alley with a barrier. The management of its construction was carried out by the "Bullring Company", presided over by D. Tomás Osborne and Bölh de Faber, descendant of the family of " Fernán-Caballero " the illustrious writer. To mark the centenary celebrations of the bullring, another ceramic tile was placed in front of the one that reminds us of the unforgettable sentence of Joselito "El Gallito". It was inaugurated on the 5th and 6th of June 1880 with two bullfights in which Antonio Carmona Gordito, of Seville, and the Cordovan Rafael Molina Lagartijo, fought bulls from the ranch of Anastasio Martín and of Saltillo. " Bordador ", was the name of the first bull that was fought in the bullring, and its crowned head can still be seen in the Reception Room.

August

Sanlucar de Barrameda, neighbouring city of Jerez, is famous for its horse racing which dates back to 1845 and takes place along a 1,800m stretch of beach at the mouth of the Río Guadalquivir during the month of August, daily from 6.00 pm, on the 2nd and 4th weekends of the month (Thursday to Sunday). This is a thrilling spectacle where real racehorses thunder across the sand watched by a large noisy crowd of spectators. There is nothing amateur about this event and you can expect to see spectator stands, bookmakers, paddocks and of course the winners enclosure. Now an international event with horses from other European countries taking part and many famous names amongst the spectators.

September

Jerez's sherry festival takes place on the first Saturday of September every year. Known locally as the Autumn Fiestas, Fiestas de Otoño, this is a three week party involving sherry, horses and flamenco. The origin of the festival is the annual celebration of the grape harvest. The festivities kick off with a flying start as the Andalusian -usually eye-catching - queen of the vintage occupies her seat of honour with her handmaidens in tow. This queen of sherry, responsible for every auntie's favourite aperitif, is raised onto her glorious wagon draped with all manner of pleats, flora and succulent grapes. Within a very short time children tail the cart, hoping to catch sweets and goodies tossed into the air from mask-wearing courtiers. The masses converge on the Plaza de Arenal to pay further respects to the queen as the bodegas (sherry houses) let the sherry flow.

October

November

december

Zambombas and flamenco christmas celebrations

The zambomba is a Christmas gathering of people in the shape of a circle (relatives, neighbors, friends) that sings typical flamenco Christmas carols. Its name comes from the typical Christmas instrument called the zambomba, which marks the beat. The zambomba appears mainly in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) where it is said to have originated, but in time it has spread to other Andalusian towns. You will find them all over Jerez during the month of December. The earliest known collections of these songs date from the XV and XVI centuries. Apparently in Jerez de la Frontera zambombas were organized from the XVIII century onwards. These were simply gatherings of friends, neighbours, and relatives who met each year on Christmas eve in the patios and corrals of communal dwelling-places and farm labourers' quarters. Huddled round a campfire they would form a chorus and sing and dance villancicos, in a purely spontaneous manner and for an indefinite time, while the wine, anisette, and punch flowed freely and Christmas sweets were passed out. The basic instrument is the zambomba, hence the name of the celebration. These zambombas are usually the work of an artesan, being a clay vessel covered with animal skin - usually goat - or some sort of thin material. In the center of the covering a long cane is secured which produces a deep sound when rubbed with the hand and this is what forms the rhythmic basis for the villancicos.

In the Zambomba there is a fundamental difference in contrast to the rest of flamenco fiestas, since it is a celebration with a strong element of participation. While in other fiestas there is a clear separation between the participants - singers, guitarists, and dancers - in the Zambombas everyone joins in singing or playing some instrument. In this way the individualistic nature of cante flamenco is lost, becoming a choral type of singing with a flamenco sound. "It is this difference that has caused villancicos to sound so flamenco, to the extent that many aficionados believe that villancicos are in the process of becoming another flamenco form, as occurred with the saeta" according to some.

Jerez de la Frontera

1. General

Campus El Sabio is situated just outside Jerez de la Frontera, a municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southwestern Spain, midway between the sea and the mountains. As of today, the city, the largest city in the province, has just over 205,000 inhabitants; the fifth largest in Andalusia. It has become the transportation and communications hub of the province, surpassing even Cádiz, the provincial capital, in economic activity. Jerez de la Frontera is also, in terms of land area, the largest municipality in the province, and its sprawling outlying areas are a fertile zone for agriculture. There are also many cattle ranches and horse-breeding operations, as well as a world-renowned wine industry.

2. Economy

The economy of Jerez has traditionally been centered on the wine industry, with exports of sherry worldwide. Because it lacks the civil service that other cities enjoy, Jerez has based its economy on industry. The cultivation of fruits, grains, and vegetables and horse and cattle husbandry has also been important to the local economy.

After the wine crisis in the 1990s, the city is now seeking to expand its industrial base. Tourism has been successfully promoted. The city's strong identity as a center for wine, flamenco, and horses, its popular festivals, MotoGP hosting and its historical heritage have contributed to this success.

The city is the home of Jerez Airport and has also been positioning itself as a logistics hub for western Andalucia, through the integration between the airport, the rail system and nearby ports.<

3. Climate

Jerez de la Frontera is in an area of Mediterranean climate with oceanic influences, characterized by mild and wet winter and dry hot summer. The average annual temperature is 17.7 °C (64 °F). Winters are mild, and January is the coldest month, with 5.4 °C (42 °F). Summers are very hot, August has the highest average of 33.1 °C (91.6 °F) and every year exceeded 38 °C (100 °F) on several occasions. The average annual precipitation are 598 mm per year, concentrated in the months of October through April. December is the wettest month with 109 mm. There are 54 rainy days per year, 137 clear days, 2,966 hours of sunshine a year, a few days of frost and no snow.

4. Name

Its name goes back to the existence of Phoenician Xera, Sèrès, then romanized under the name of Ceret; the location of this settlement, however, remains unknown. The classical Latin name of Asta Regia, unrelated to its present name, used to refer to an ancient city now found within Mesas de Asta, a rural district approximately 11 km (6.84 mi). from the center of Jerez.

The current Castilian name came by way of the Arabic name شريش Sherish. In former times, during the Muslim occupation of Iberia, it was called Xerez or Xeres. The name of the famous fortified wine, sherry, which originated here (although some argue that it originated in Shiraz, Persia), is an adaptation of the city's Arabic name, which is pronounced Sherish. Frontera in its name refers to being a Spanish frontier, located on the border between the Moorish and Christian regions of Spain during that period, a regular host to skirmishes and clashes between the two regions. Over two centuries later, after the conquest of Granada in 1492, Xerez definitely lost its status as a frontier city, but did not lose that designation.

When the Kingdom of Castile took Jerez on October 9, 1264, following the name given by the Muslims to the city in the period known as the Reconquista, the city was then called Xerez in medieval Castilian, transcribing the consonant /ʃ/ (like the English sh) with the letter ‹x›, as was the rule at the time. (This orthography includes Mexico and Texas). In the sixteenth century, it could be noticed that the consonant /ʃ/ was starting to merge into the consonant /x/, with the corresponding spelling of Jerez.

The old spelling "Xerez" was the name given to the city in several foreign languages until very recently, and today continues to influence the name given to sherry: [Portuguese language|Portuguese]] Xerez [ʃəˈɾɛʃ], Catalan Xerès [ʃəˈɾɛs], English sherry /ˈʃerɪ/, French Xérès [ɡzeʁɛs], Italian Xeres [ˈksɛɾes].

5. History

There are signs of human presence in the area from the upper Neolithic, and Jerèz de la Frontera has been inhabited by humans since at least the Copper or Neolithic Age, but the identity of the first natives remains unclear. The first major protohistoric settlement in the area (around the third millennium BC) is attributed to the Tartessians.

Later it was a Roman city, under the name of Asta Regia. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was ruled by the Vandals and the Visigoths, until it was conquered by the Arabs in 711. In the 11th century it was shortly the seat of an independent taifa. Some years later it was united to Arcos by 'Abdun ibn Muhammad, who ruled both c. 1040-1053. In 1053 it was annexed to Seville. From 1145 to 1147 the region of Arcos and Jerez was briefly an emirate under dependency of Granada, led by Abu'l-Qasim Ahyal. Later the city was conquered by the Almohads. In the 12th and 13th centuries Jerez underwent a period of great development, building its defense system and setting the current street layout of the old town.

In 1231 the Battle of Jerez took place within the town's vicinity, in which the Christian troops under the command of Alvaro Perez de Castro, lord of the House of Castro and grandson of Alfonso VII, king of Castile and León, defeated the troops of the Emir Ibn Hud, despite the numerical superiority of the latter. The city was conquered by Castile in 1264. The Discovery of America and the conquest of Granada, in 1492, made Jerez one of the most prosperous cities of Andalusia through trade and its proximity to the ports of Seville and Cadiz. Despite the social, economic and political decadence that occurred in the seventeenth century, towards the end of the Habsburg rule, the city managed to maintain a reasonable pace of development, becoming world wide famous for its wine industry.

6. Main Sights

• Alcazar, a Moorish fortress, dating to the 11th century

• The Cathedral

• Church of San Miguel (15th century). It is in Gothic-Baroque style

• Church of San Mateo, in Gothic style, the oldest in the city

• The Charterhouse

• Church of Santiago, dating back to Alfonso X of Castile's times

• Church of San Juan de los Caballeros, created after Alfonso X's conquest of the city in 1264

• Church of San Marcos (13th century)

• Church of San Dionisio (13th century), built around 1457

• Palacio Duque de Abrantes

• Renaissance Town Hall (Ayuntamiento), built in 1575

7. Culture

Jerez is known as the capital of sherry wine, the horse, and flamenco. It is the home of the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, a riding school comparable to the world-famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Jerez, the city where flamenco singing began, is also proud of its Andalusian Centre of Flamenco.

There are two museums of note: the Jerez Archaeological Museum and the Atalaya Watch Museum (also known as "Palace of Time").

The old quarter of Jerez, dating from medieval times, has been named an "Artistic Historic Complex". The Easter week celebrations in Jerez are of "National Touristic Interest", and its remarkable Horse Fair (Feria del Caballo) in May is an event of "International Touristic Interest".

This is the city from where all the actors of En tu ausencia, the 2007 independent movie by Ivan Noel come from. The movie was filmed in the city's region. Gonzalo Sanchez Salas is the boy, found working in a butcher shop in the city, that performs the role of Pablo, the lead characther in the movie.

8. Sport

Jerez is present in most important national competitions. The more important clubs in different sport are:

• Xerez Club Deportivo: first football team in the city. In 2009/2010 played in the Liga BBVA in Spain.

• Puma Chapín Jerez: Jerez is home to one of the best athletic teams of Spain. It has been champion of Spain in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. It has been the Copa del Rey champion many times.

• Club Natación Jerez: it has been champion of many championships, it has won the "Campeonato de España Master" ("Championship of Spain Master") many times.

• Canasta Unibasket Jerez: City's basketball team. Currently it is be in the LEB Plata (Spanish's basketball's league of Silver).

Jerez is also the site of Circuito de Jerez, formerly called the Circuito Permanente de Jerez, where the annual Motorcycle Grand Prix is contested. The race course is a prime destination for Formula One teams who wish to perform off-season testing; it also hosted the highly controversial 1997 European Grand Prix.

Spain

1. Geography

At 504,782 km2 (194,897 sq mi), Spain is the world's 51st-largest country. It is some 47,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) smaller than France and 81,000 km2 (31,000 sq mi) larger than the U.S. state of California. The Teide (Tenerife, Canary Islands) is the highest peak of Spain and the third largest volcano in the world from its base.

On the west, Spain borders Portugal; on the south, it borders Gibraltar (a British overseas territory) and Morocco, through its exclaves in North Africa (Ceuta, Melilla, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera). On the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra.

Spain 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 Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. Along the Pyrenees in Catalonia, a small exclave town called Llívia is surrounded by France. The little Pheasant Island in the River Bidasoa is a Spanish-French condominium.

Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tagus, 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.

2. History

After a long and hard conquest, the Iberian Peninsula became a region of the Roman Empire known as Hispania. During the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later was conquered by Muslim invaders. Through a very long and fitful process, the Christian kingdoms in the north gradually rolled back Muslim rule, finally extinguishing its last remnant in Granada in 1492, the same year Columbus reached the Americas. A global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe and the leading world power in the 16th century and first half of the 17th century.

Continued wars and other problems eventually led to a diminished status. The French invasion of Spain in the early 19th century led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire and left the country politically unstable. In the 20th century it suffered a devastating civil war and came under the rule of an authoritarian government, leading to years of stagnation, but finishing in an impressive economic surge. Democracy was restored in 1978 in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. In 1986, Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a cultural renaissance and steady economic growth.

Prehistory and pre-Roman peoples

Archaeological research at Atapuerca indicates the Iberian Peninsula was populated by hominids 1.2 million years ago. Modern humans first arrived in Iberia, from the north on foot, about 32,000 years ago. The best known artifacts of these prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the Altamira cave of Cantabria in northern Iberia, which were created about 15,000 BCE by cro-magnons.

Archaeological and genetic evidence strongly suggests that the Iberian Peninsula acted as one of several major refugia from which northern Europe was repopulated following the end of the last ice 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 known as Celtiberian was present. In recent years, a number of scholars have argued that Celtic culture has an Iberian origin.

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 (c. 1100 BC) in the location of the present-day triangle between Seville, Huelva and Jerez. 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 Mediterranean coast. The Carthaginians briefly exerted control over much of the Mediterranean coastal areas in the course of the Punic Wars, until their rule was defeated and replaced by that of the Romans.

Roman Empire and the Gothic Kingdom

During the Second Punic War, an expanding Roman Empire captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast from roughly 210 BC to 205 BC, leading to eventual Roman control of nearly the entire Iberian Peninsula. This control lasted over 500 years, bound together by law, language, and the Roman road.[21]

The base Celt and Iberian populations were gradually romanized at differing rates in different parts of Hispania. Local leaders were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class. Hispania served as a granary for the Roman market, and its harbors exported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine. Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use. Emperors Trajan, Theodosius I, and the philosopher Seneca were born in Hispania.[note 8]

Christianity was introduced into Hispania in the 1st century CE and it became popular in the cities in the 2nd century CE. Most of Spain's present languages and religion, and the basis of its laws, originate from this period.

Rome's loss of jurisdiction in Hispania began in 409, when the Germanic Suevi and Vandals, together with the Sarmatian Alans crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul until the Visigoths drove them into Iberia that same year. The Suevi established a kingdom in what is today modern Galicia and northern Portugal. As the western empire disintegrated, the social and economic base became greatly simplified: but even in modified form, the successor regimes maintained many of the institutions and laws of the late empire, including Christianity.

The Alans' allies, the Hasdingi Vandals, established a kingdom in Gallaecia, too, occupying largely the same region but extending farther south to the Duero river. The Silingi Vandals occupied the region that still bears a form of their name –Vandalusia, modern Andalusia, in Spain. The Byzantines established an enclave, Spania, in the south, with the intention of reviving the Roman empire throughout Iberia. Eventually, however, Hispania was reunited under Visigothic rule.

Muslim Iberia

In the 8th century, nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered (711–718) by largely Moorish Muslim armies from North Africa. These conquests were part of the expansion of the Umayyad Islamic Empire. Only a small area in the mountainous north-west of the peninsula managed to resist the initial invasion.

Under Islamic law, Christians and Jews were given the subordinate status of dhimmi. This status permitted Christians and Jews to practice their religions as people of the book but they were required to pay a special tax and to be subject to certain discriminations.

Conversion to Islam proceeded at a steadily increasing pace. The muladies (Muslims of ethnic Iberian origin) are believed to have comprised the majority of the population of Al-Andalus by the end of the 10th century.

The Muslim community in the Iberian peninsula was itself diverse and beset by social tensions. The Berber people of North Africa, who had provided the bulk of the invading armies, clashed with the Arab leadership from the Middle East. Over time, large Moorish populations became established, especially in the Guadalquivir River valley, the coastal plain of Valencia, the Ebro River valley and (towards the end of this period) in the mountainous region of Granada.

Córdoba, the capital of the caliphate, was the largest, richest and most sophisticated city in western Europe. Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange flourished. Muslims imported a rich intellectual tradition from the Middle East and North Africa. Muslim and Jewish scholars played an important part in reviving and expanding classical Greek learning in Western Europe. The Romanized cultures of the Iberian peninsula interacted with Muslim and Jewish cultures in complex ways, thus giving the region a distinctive culture.[26] Outside the cities, where the vast majority lived, the land ownership system from Roman times remained largely intact as Muslim leaders rarely dispossessed landowners, and the introduction of new crops and techniques led to a remarkable expansion of agriculture.[citation needed]

In the 11th century, the Muslim holdings fractured into rival Taifa kingdoms, allowing the small Christian states the opportunity to greatly enlarge their territories. The arrival from North Africa of the Islamic ruling sects of the Almoravids and the Almohads restored unity upon the Muslim holdings, with a stricter, less tolerant application of Islam, and saw a revival in Muslim fortunes. This re-united Islamic state, after more than a century of successes, including the conquest of a large part of the peninsula's northeast, finally fell to a Christian alliance in the 13th century, as a coalition army of the Christian kingdoms of Spain defeated the Islamic Almohads at the decisive Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

Fall of Muslim rule and unification

The Reconquista ("Reconquest") is the centuries-long period of expansion of Iberia's Christian kingdoms. The Reconquista is viewed as beginning with the Battle of Covadonga in 722, and was concurrent with the period of Muslim rule on the Iberian peninsula. The Christian army's victory over Muslim forces led to the creation of the Christian Kingdom of Asturias along the northwestern coastal mountains. Muslim armies had also moved north of the Pyrenees, but they were defeated by Frankish forces at the Battle of Poitiers, Frankia.

Subsequently, they retreated to more secure positions south of the Pyrenees with a frontier marked by the Ebro and Duero valleys. In 739 Muslim forces were driven from Galicia, which was to host one of medieval Europe's holiest sites, Santiago de Compostela. A little later, Frankish forces established Christian counties on the southern side of the Pyrenees; these areas were to grow into kingdoms. These territories included Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia.

The breakup of Al-Andalus into the competing Taifa kingdoms helped the Christian kingdoms. The capture of the strategically central city of Toledo in 1085 marked a significant shift in the balance of power in favour of the Christian kingdoms of Iberia. After a great Muslim resurgence in the 12th century, the great Moorish strongholds in the south fell to Christian Spain in the 13th century—Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248—leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a tributary state in the south.

In the 13th and 14th centuries the Marinids Muslim sect based in North Africa invaded and established some enclaves on the southern coast but failed in their attempt to re-establish Muslim rule in Iberia and were soon driven out. The 13th century also witnessed the Crown of Aragon, centred in Spain's north east, expand its reach across islands in the Mediterranean, to Sicily and even Athens. Around this time the universities of Palencia (1212/1263) and Salamanca (1218/1254) were established. The Black Death of 1348 and 1349 devastated Spain.

In 1469, the crowns of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united by the marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. 1478 commenced the completion of the conquest of the Canary Islands and in 1492, the combined forces of the Castile and Aragon captured the Emirate of Granada, ending the last remnant of a 781-year presence of Islamic rule in Iberia. The Treaty of Granada guaranteed religious tolerance toward Muslims.

The year 1492 also marked the arrival in the New World of Christopher Columbus, during a voyage funded by Isabella. That same year, Spain's Jews were ordered to convert to Catholicism or face expulsion from Spanish territories during the Spanish Inquisition.[32] A few years later, following social disturbances, Muslims were also expelled under the same conditions. As Renaissance New Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand centralized royal power at the expense of local nobility, and the word España, whose root is the ancient name Hispania, began to be commonly used to designate the whole of the two kingdoms. With their wide-ranging political, legal, religious and military reforms, Spain emerged as the first world power.

Imperial Spain

The unification of the crowns of Aragon and Castile laid the basis for modern Spain and the Spanish Empire. Spain was Europe's leading power throughout the 16th century and most of the 17th century, a position reinforced by trade and wealth from colonial possessions. It reached its apogee during the reigns of the first two Spanish Habsburgs – Charles I (1516–1556) and Philip II (1556–1598). This period saw the Italian Wars, the revolt of the comuneros, the Dutch revolt, the Morisco revolt, clashes with the Ottomans, the Anglo-Spanish war and wars with France.

The Spanish Empire expanded to include great parts of the Americas, islands in the Asia-Pacific area, areas of Italy, cities in Northern Africa, as well as parts of what are now France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It was the first empire of which it was said that the sun never set.

This was an age of discovery, with daring explorations by sea and by land, the opening-up of new trade routes across oceans, conquests and the beginnings of European colonialism. Along with the arrival of precious metals, spices, luxuries, and new agricultural plants, Spanish explorers brought back knowledge from the New World, and played a leading part in transforming the European understanding of the globe. The cultural efflorescence witnessed is now referred to as the Spanish Golden Age. The rise of humanism, the Protestant Reformation and new geographical discoveries raised issues addressed by the influential intellectual movement now known as the School of Salamanca.

In the late 16th century and first half of the 17th century, Spain was confronted by unrelenting challenges from all sides. Barbary pirates under the aegis of the rapidly growing Ottoman empire, disrupted life in many coastal areas through their slave raids and renewed the threat of an Islamic invasion. This at a time when Spain was often at war with France. The Protestant Reformation schism from the Catholic Church dragged the kingdom ever more deeply into the mire of religiously charged wars. The result was a country forced into ever expanding military efforts across Europe and in the Mediterranean.

By the middle decades of a war- and plague-ridden 17th century Europe the Spanish Habsburgs had enmeshed the country in the continent-wide religious-political conflicts. These conflicts drained it of resources and undermined the European economy generally. Spain managed to hold on to most of the scattered Habsburg empire, and help the imperial forces of the Holy Roman Empire reverse a large part of the advances made by Protestant forces, but it was finally forced to recognise the separation of Portugal (with whom it had been united in a personal union of the crowns from 1580 to 1640) and the Netherlands, and eventually suffered some serious military reverses to France in the latter stages of the immensely destructive, Europe-wide Thirty Years War.

In the latter half of the 17th century, Spain went into a gradual relative decline, during which it surrendered a number of small territories to France. However it maintained and enlarged its vast overseas empire, which remained intact until the beginning of the 19th century.

The decline culminated in a controversy over succession to the throne which consumed the first years of the 18th century. The War of Spanish Succession was a wide ranging international conflict combined with a civil war, and was to cost the kingdom its European possessions and its position as one of the leading powers on the Continent.

During this war, a new dynasty originating in France, the Bourbons, was installed. Long united only by the Crown, a true Spanish state was established when the first Bourbon king, Philip V, united the crowns of Castile and Aragon into a single state, abolishing many of the old regional privileges and laws.

The 18th century saw a gradual recovery and an increase in prosperity through much of the empire. The new Bourbon monarchy drew on the French system of modernising the administration and the economy. Enlightenment ideas began to gain ground among some of the kingdom's elite and monarchy. Military assistance for the rebellious British colonies in the American War of Independence improved the kingdom's international standing.

Napoleonic rule and its consequences

In 1793, Spain went to war against the new French Republic, which had overthrown and executed its Bourbon king, Louis XVI. The war polarised the country in an apparent reaction against the gallicised elites. Defeated in the field, peace was made with France in 1795 and it effectively became a client state of that country; In 1807, the secret treaty of Fontainebleau between Napoleon and the deeply unpopular Godoy led to a declaration of war against Britain and Portugal. French troops entered the kingdom unopposed, supposedly to invade Portugal, but instead they occupied Spanish fortresses. This invasion by trickery led to the abdication of the ridiculed Spanish king in favour of Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte.

This foreign puppet monarch was widely regarded with scorn. The 2nd of May 1808 revolt was one of many nationalist uprisings against the Bonapartist regime across the country.[43] These revolts marked the beginning of what is known to the Spanish as the War of Independence, and to the British as the Peninsular War.[44] Napoleon was forced to intervene personally, defeating several badly coordinated Spanish armies and forcing a British army to retreat. However, further military action by Spanish guerrillas and armies, and Wellington's British-Portuguese forces, combined with Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, led to the ousting of the French imperial armies from the Spain in 1814, and the return of King Ferdinand VII.

The French invasions devastated the economy, and left Spain a deeply divided country prone to political instability. The power struggles of the early 19th century led to the loss of all of its colonies in the Americas (which stretched from Las Californias to Patagonia), with the sole exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Spanish–American War

Amid the instability and economic crisis that afflicted Spain in the 19th century there arose nationalist movements in the Philippines and Cuba. Wars of independence ensued in those colonies and eventually the United States became involved. Despite the commitment and ability shown by some military units, they were so mismanaged by the highest levels of command that the Spanish–American War, fought in the Spring of 1898, did not last long. "El Desastre" (The Disaster), as the war became known, helped give impetus to the Generation of 98 who were already conducting much critical analysis concerning the country. It also weakened the stability that had been established during Alfonso XII's reign.

Spanish Civil War

The 20th century brought little peace; Spain played a minor part in the scramble for Africa, with the colonisation of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. The heavy losses suffered during the Rif war in Morocco helped to undermine the monarchy. A period of authoritarian rule under General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia and gave voting rights to women.

The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) ensued. Three years later the Nationalist forces, led by General Francisco Franco, emerged victorious with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Popular Front government side was supported by the Soviet Union and Mexico and International Brigades, including the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but it was not supported officially by the Western powers due to the British-led policy of Non-Intervention.

The Civil War claimed the lives of over 500,000 people and caused the flight of up to a half-million citizens. Most of their descendants now live in Latin American countries, with some 300,000 in Argentina alone. The Spanish Civil War has been called the first battle of the Second World War; under Franco the country was neutral in the Second World War, although sympathetic to the Axis.

The only legal party under Franco's post civil war regime was the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, formed in 1937; the party emphasised anti-Communism, Catholicism and nationalism. Given Franco's opposition to competing political parties, the party was renamed the National Movement (Movimiento Nacional) in 1949.

After World War II Spain was politically and economically isolated, and was kept out of the United Nations. This changed in 1955, during the Cold War period, when it became strategically important for the U.S. to establish a military presence on the Iberian peninsula as a counter to any possible move by the U.S.S.R into the Mediterranean basin. In the 1960s, Spain registered an unprecedented rate of economic growth in what became known as the Spanish miracle, which resumed the much interrupted transition towards a modern economy.

With Franco's death in November 1975, Juan Carlos assumed the position of King of Spain and head of state in accordance with the law. With the approval of the new Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, the State devolved much authority to the regions and created an internal organization based on autonomous communities.

In the Basque Country, moderate Basque nationalism has coexisted with a radical nationalist movement led by the terrorist group ETA. The group was formed in 1959 during Franco's rule but has continued to wage its violent campaign even after the restoration of democracy and the return of a large measure of regional autonomy.

On 23 February 1981, rebel elements among the security forces seized the Cortes in an attempt to impose a military backed government. King Juan Carlos took personal command of the military and successfully ordered the coup plotters, via national television, to surrender.

On 30 May 1982 Spain joined NATO, following a referendum. That year the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) came to power, the first left-wing government in 43 years. In 1986 Spain joined the European Community; what became the European Union. The PSOE was replaced in government by the Partido Popular (PP) after the latter won the 1996 General Elections; at that point the PSOE had served almost 14 consecutive years in office.

21st century

On 1 January 2002, Spain ceased to use the peseta as currency replacing it with the euro, which it shares with 15 other countries in the Eurozone. Spain has also seen strong economic growth, well above the EU average, but well publicised concerns issued by many economic commentators at the height of the boom that the extraordinary property prices and high foreign trade deficits of the boom were likely to lead to a painful economic collapse were confirmed by a severe property led recession that struck the country in 2008/9. A series of bombs exploded in commuter trains in Madrid, Spain on 11 March 2004. After a five month trial in 2007 it was concluded the bombings were perpetrated by a local Islamist militant group inspired by al-Qaeda. The bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1800, and the intention of the perpetrators may have been to influence the outcome of the Spanish general election, held three days later.

Though initial suspicions focused on the Basque group ETA, evidence soon emerged indicating possible Islamist involvement. Because of the proximity of the election, the issue of responsibility quickly became a political controversy, with the main competing parties PP and PSOE exchanging accusations over the handling of the aftermath.[52] At the 14 March elections, PSOE, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, obtained a plurality, enough to form a new cabinet with Rodríguez Zapatero as the new Presidente del Gobierno or Prime Minister of Spain, thus succeeding the former PP administration.

3. Government

Constitution

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 is the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy. The constitutional history of Spain dates back to the constitution of 1812. Impatient with the pace of democratic political reforms in 1976 and 1977, Spain's new King Juan Carlos, known for his formidable personality, dismissed Carlos Arias Navarro and appointed the reformer Adolfo Suárez as Prime Minister. The resulting general election in 1977 convened the Constituent Cortes (the Spanish Parliament, in its capacity as a constitutional assembly) for the purpose of drafting and approving the constitution of 1978.[56] After a national referendum on 6 December 1978, 88% of voters approved of the new constitution.

As a result, Spain is now composed of 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities with varying degrees of autonomy thanks to its Constitution, which nevertheless explicitly states the indivisible unity of the Spanish nation as well as that Spain has today no official religion but all are free to practice and believe as they wish.

Branches of government

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 of Spain presided over by the Prime Minister, nominated and appointed by the monarch and confirmed by the Congress of Deputies following legislative elections. By political custom established by King Juan Carlos since the ratification of the 1978 Constitution, the king's nominees have all been from parties who maintain a plurality of seats in the Congress.

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 (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.<

• Head of State

o King Juan Carlos I, since 22 November 1975

• Head of Government

o Prime Minister of Spain (Spanish Presidente del Gobierno literally President of the Government): José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, elected 14 March 2004.

• Cabinet

o Council of Ministers (Spanish Consejo de Ministros) designated by the Prime Minister.

The Spanish nation is organizationally composed in the form of called Estado de las Autonomías ("State of Autonomies"); it is one of the most decentralized countries in Europe, along with Switzerland, Germany and Belgium; for example, all Autonomous Communities have their own elected parliaments, governments, public administrations, budgets, and resources; therefore, health and education systems among others are managed regionally, besides, the Basque Country and Navarre also manage their own public finances based on foral provisions. In Catalonia and the Basque Country, a full fledged autonomous police corps replaces some of the State police functions (see Mossos d'Esquadra, Ertzaintza, Policía Foral and Policía Canaria).

Gender equality in Government

As of November 2009, the Government of Spain keeps a balanced gender equality ratio. Nine out of the 18 members of the Government are women. Under the administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain has been described as being "at the vanguard" in gender equality issues and also that "[n]o other modern, democratic, administration outside Scandinavia has taken more steps to place gender issues at the centre of government". The Spanish administration has also promoted gender-based positive discrimination by approving gender equality legislation in 2007 aimed to provide equality between genders in the Spanish political and economic life (Gender Equality Act). However, in the legislative branch, as of July 2010 only 128 out of the 350 members of the Congress are women (36.3%). Nowadays, it positions Spain as the 13th country with more women in its lower house. In the Senate, the ratio is even lower, since there are only 79 women out of 263 (30.0%). The Gender Empowerment Measure of Spain in the United Nations Human Development Report is 0.794, the 12th in the world.

Administrative divisions

The basic institutional law of the autonomous community is the Statute of Autonomy. The Statutes of Autonomy establish the denomination of the community according to its historical identity, the limits of their territories, the name and organization of the institutions of government and the rights they enjoy according the constitution.

The government of all autonomous communities must be based on a division of powers comprising:

• a Legislative Assembly whose members must be elected by universal suffrage according to the system of proportional representation and in which all areas that integrate the territory are fairly represented;

• a Government Council, with executive and administrative functions headed by a president, elected by the Legislative Assembly and nominated by the King of Spain;

• a Supreme Court of Justice, under the Supreme Court of the State, which head the judicial organization within the autonomous community.

Besides Andalusia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, which identified themselves as nationalities, other communities have taken that denomination in accordance to their historical regional identity, such as the Valencian Community, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, and Aragon.

The autonomous communities have wide legislative and executive autonomy, with their own parliaments and regional governments. The distribution of powers may be different for every community, as laid out in their Statutes of Autonomy. There used to be a clear de facto distinction between so called "historic" communities (Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia) and the rest. The "historic" ones initially received more functions, including the ability of the regional presidents to choose the timing of the regional elections (as long as they happen no more than four years apart).

As another example, the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia have full-range police forces of their own: Ertzaintza in the Basque Country, Policía Foral in Navarre and Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalonia. Other communities have more limited forces or none at all (like the Policía Autónoma Andaluza in Andalusia or the BESCAM in Madrid).

However, the recent amendments made to their respective Statute of Autonomy by a series of "ordinary" Autonomous Communities such as the Valencian Community or Aragon have weakened this original de facto distinction.

Suvdivision

Autonomous communities are composed of provinces (provincias), which serve as the territorial building blocks for the former. In turn, provinces are composed of municipalities (municipios). The existence of these two subdivisions is granted and protected by the constitution, not necessarily by the Statutes of Autonomy themselves. Municipalities are granted autonomy to manage their internal affairs, and provinces are the territorial divisions designed to carry out the activities of the State.

The current fifty province structure is based—with minor changes—on the one created in 1833 by Javier de Burgos. The communities of Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, Murcia and Navarre are counted as provinces as well, but were granted autonomy as single-provinces for historical reasons.

Foreign relations

Spain was a founding member of the European Union in 1993 and signed the Maastricht Treaty. After the return of democracy following the death of Franco in 1975, Spain's foreign policy priorities were to break out of the diplomatic isolation of the Franco years and expand diplomatic relations, enter the European Community, and define security relations with the West.

As a member of NATO since 1982, Spain has established itself as a major[clarification needed] participant in multilateral international security activities. Spain's EU membership represents an important part of its foreign policy. Even on many international issues beyond western Europe, Spain prefers to coordinate its efforts with its EU partners through the European political cooperation mechanisms.

With the normalization of diplomatic relations with North Korea in 2001, Spain completed the process of universalizing its diplomatic relations.

Spain has maintained its special identification with Latin America. Its policy emphasizes the concept of an Iberoamerican community, essentially the renewal of the historically liberal concept of hispanoamericanismo, or Hispanism as it is often referred to in English, which has sought to link the Iberian peninsula with Latin America through language, commerce, history and culture. Spain has been an effective example of transition from dictatorship to democracy for formerly non-democratic Latin American states, as shown in the many trips that Spain's King and Prime Ministers have made to the region.

Economy

Spain's capitalist mixed economy is the ninth largest worldwide and the fifth largest in Europe. It is also the third largest world investor.

The centre-right government of former prime minister José María Aznar worked successfully to gain admission to the group of countries launching the euro in 1999. Unemployment stood at 7.6% in October 2006, a rate that compared favorably to many other European countries, and especially with the early 1990s when it stood at over 20%. Perennial weak points of Spain's economy include high inflation, a large underground economy, and an education system which OECD reports place among the poorest for developed countries, together with the United States and UK.

However, the property bubble that begun building from 1997, fed by historically low interest rates and an immense surge in immigration, imploded in 2008, leading to a rapidly weakening economy and soaring unemployment. By the end of May 2009 unemployment already reached 18.7% (37% for youths).

Spain is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone (dark blue), and of the EU single market.

Before the current crisis, the Spanish economy was credited for having avoided the virtual zero growth rate of some of its largest partners in the EU. In fact, the country's economy created more than half of all the new jobs in the European Union over the five years ending 2005, a process that is rapidly being reversed. The Spanish economy has been until recently regarded as one of the most dynamic within the EU, attracting significant amounts of foreign investment.

The most recent economic growth benefited greatly from the global real estate boom, with construction representing an astonishing 16% of GDP and 12% of employment in its final year.

According to calculations by the German newspaper Die Welt, Spain was on course to overtake countries like Germany in per capita income by 2011. However, the downside of the now defunct real estate boom is a corresponding rise in the levels of personal debt: as prospective home owners struggled to meet asking prices, the average level of household debt tripled in less than a decade. This placed especially great pressure upon lower to middle income groups; by 2005 the median ratio of indebtedness to income had grown to 125%, due primarily to expensive boom time mortgages that now often exceed the value of the property.

In 2008/2009 the credit crunch and world recession manifested itself in Spain through a massive downturn in the property sector. Fortunately, Spain's banks and financial services avoided the more severe problems of their counterparts in the USA and UK, due mainly to a stringently enforced conservative financial regulatory regime. The Spanish financial authorities had not forgotten the country's own banking crisis of 1979 and an earlier real estate precipitated banking crisis of 1993. Indeed, Spain's largest bank, Banco Santander, took part in the UK government's bail-out of part of the UK banking sector.

A European Commission forecast predicted Spain would enter a recession by the end of 2008. According to Spain’s Finance Minister, “Spain faces its deepest recession in half a century”. Spain's government forecast the unemployment rate would rise to 16% in 2009. The ESADE business school predicted 20%.

Transportation

The Spanish road system is mainly centralized, with 6 highways connecting Madrid to the Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, West Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia. Additionally, there are highways along the Atlantic (Ferrol to Vigo), Cantabrian (Oviedo to San Sebastián) and Mediterranean (Girona to Cádiz) coasts.

Spain currently has a total of 1272 km of high speed train linking Málaga, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona and Valladolid. Should the aims of the ambitious AVE program (Spanish high speed trains) be met, by 2020 Spain will have 7000 km (4300 mi) of high-speed trains linking almost all provincial cities to Madrid in less than 3 hours and Barcelona within 4 hours. The busiest airport in Spain is the airport of Madrid (Barajas), with 50.8 million passengers in 2008, being the world's 11th busiest airport. The airport of Barcelona (El Prat) is also important, with 30 million passengers in 2008. Other airports are located in Gran Canaria, Málaga, Valencia, Seville, Mallorca, Alicante and Bilbao.

Spain aims to put 1 million electric cars on the road by 2014 as part of the government's plan to save energy and boost energy efficiency.[101] The Minister of Industry Miguel Sebastian said that "the electric vehicle is the future and the engine of an industrial revolution."[102]

Demographics

In 2008 the population of Spain officially reached 46 million people, as recorded by the Padrón municipal. Spain's population density, at 91/km² (235/sq mi), is lower than that of most Western European countries and its distribution across 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 20th century, principally due to the spectacular demographic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Native Spaniards make up 88% of the total population of Spain. After the birth rate plunged in the 1980s and Spain's population growth rate dropped, the population again trended upward, based initially on the return of many Spaniards who had emigrated to other European countries during the 1970s, and more recently, fuelled by large numbers of immigrants who make up 12% of the population. The immigrants originate mainly in Latin America (39%), North Africa (16%) Eastern Europe (15%), and Sub-Saharan Africa (4%). In 2005, Spain instituted a three-month amnesty program through which certain hitherto undocumented aliens were granted legal residency.

In 2008, Spain granted citizenship to 84,170 persons, mostly to people from Ecuador, Colombia and Morocco. A sizeable portion of foreign residents in Spain also comes from other Western and Central European countries. These are mostly British, French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian. They reside primarily on the Mediterranean costas and Balearic islands, where many are choosing to live their retirement or telework.

Substantial populations descended from Spanish colonists and immigrants exist in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America. Beginning in the late 15th century, large numbers of Iberian colonists settled in what became Latin America and at present most white Latin Americans (who make up about one-third of Latin America's population) are of Spanish or Portuguese origin. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Spaniards emigrated, mostly to Peru and Mexico. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Between 1846 and 1932 nearly 5 million Spaniards went to the Americas, especially to Argentina and Brazil. From 1960 to 1975, approximately two million Spaniards migrated to other Western European countries. During the same time period, about 300,000 people left Spain for Latin America.