Spain is a country in the southwest of Europe. It is in the Iberian Peninsula near Portugal and Gibraltar. France and the little country of Andorra are on its northeast side, where the Pyrenee mountains are. The Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in the north of Africa are all part of Spain, too.

The people of Spain are called Spanish or Spaniards. Most people there speak Spanish, but there are other languages in different parts of the country. They are Catalan, Basque, and Galician. The religion of most of the people in Spain is Roman Catholic.

Since 1978, Spain has had a king, who only does what the parliament (group of people who lead the country) tells him to. The parliament is called Las Cortes, and it is chosen by the Spanish people by voting. This kind of government is called a constitutional monarchy. The King of Spain is called Juan Carlos I. The President is José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The government and the king's palace are in Madrid, the capital of Spain. It is in the middle of the country.

Spain has more than five hundred thousand square kilometres of land. It is not as big as France, but it is bigger than Sweden or Germany. Around forty-three million people live in Spain.

Spain has 17 parts called autonomous communities (this means that they decide what they want to do themselves). Each part has its own government.

History of Spain

Early history
People have lived in Spain for a long time. There were people living there at least in the Bronze Age. The first references to Spain are in The Bible. Some of the first people to live there were Iberians and Celts, and the Phoenicians made a few cities there to get tin and silver for the Near East. Later, the Roman Empire controlled Spain for about five hundred years; then as the Roman Empire broke up, groups of Germanic people moved into Spain and took it over. One of these groups, the Visigoths, were Christians and controlled Spain for about two hundred years.

Muslim Spain
In the 700s, Arabic people took over, and later groups from North Africa, called the Moors, controlled Spain for eight hundred years. They were Muslims, and Muslim Spain was the farthest western point of Islamic civilization. This civilization was quite advanced at architecture and urban planning. The Moors were also quite wealthy because they controlled the gold trade from the Ghana Empire in West Africa. They built many beautiful buildings, especially in the south of the country, a place called Andalusia. You can see many of their buildings still standing in cities in Andalusia, such as Seville, Granada, and Cordoba.

Muslim Spain was multicultural and tolerant with Jews, Christians and Muslims living in peace side by side. It was focused on learning - the greatest library system outside Baghdad was also there.

1492
The Christian kingdoms that were still in the North of Spain decided to fight to take the rest Spain again from the Muslims. They fought wars for many hundreds of years, and slowly pushed the border farther south.

In the year 1492, they took the last part of Spain that still belonged to the Moors. Boabdil, the last Moorish Prince of Granada, gave the keys to King Ferdinand II of Aragon on 2 January 1492. It was Ferdinand who now ruled all of Spain.

Before this, there were a number of Christian countries in what is now called Spain. Two of these countries, Castile and Aragon, came together when Ferdinand II of Aragon married the queen Isabella of Castile.

Inside of the Mezquita in Córdoba, a Muslim mosque which became a Christian cathedral.In the same year, 1492, they sent Christopher Columbus to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus found the islands of the Caribbean Sea.

When other European sailors explored more, they found out that there were two continents there - North America and South America. Spain sent many soldiers and businessmen to North and South America, and they took over very large parts of those two continents. Owning this empire and taking everything valuable back to Spain made it a very rich country. Spain owned this empire for more than three hundred years.

Meanwhile, at home, the Muslim manuscripts had been either burnt or taken to other countries. Jews had also been expelled from Spain. Among the few things kept and respected in Spain were in music: harmony and stringed instruments. The buildings that had been built by the Moors were kept, and many Muslim religious buildings (mosques) were turned into churches by adding crosses. One example of this is the Mezquita in Cordoba.

18th century
In the 18th century, there was a question over who should become king of Spain; this led many of the kings of Europe to fight. This was called the War of the Spanish Succession.

France occupied Spain for a long time. This made Spain very weak. It also made Spain lose its empire in North and South America; all of the parts of that empire became their own countries, or were taken over by other countries, such as the United States of America.

19th century
Spain was poor by this time, and was invaded by Napoleon of France. Britain sent its own troops to defend Spain, since it was so weak.

20th century
There was not much peace in Spain during the first part of the 20th century. Some Spaniards tried to set up a government chosen by the people (a democracy), and they made the King of Spain leave the country. However, in 1936, two different groups of Spaniards went to war over whether the government should be a democracy, or take orders from one person. In 1939, those who wanted democracy were defeated, and a dictator named Francisco Franco took over the government.

Franco died in 1975. He had decided that Spain should have a king again, and he chose Juan Carlos, the grandson of the king who had been forced to leave the country, to be king. But the king did not rule as a dictator; instead, he chose to set up a democracy. Now Spain is a modern democratic country, and does business with many countries around the world. It is a part of the European Union.

Geography

The middle of Spain is a high, dry, flat land called La Meseta. In La Meseta it can be very hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Spain also has many mountain ranges. On the coast, the weather is warm and "temperate" - temperate weather is neither very hot nor very cold. Since Spain is in the south of Europe, it is very sunny. Many people from Northern Europe take their vacations in Spain, enjoying its beaches and cities.