Andres Cabrera, tour guide to
Spain & Iberian
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The
Iberians were a set of peoples that
Greek and
Roman sources (among others,
Hecataeus of Miletus,
Avienus,
Herodotus and
Strabo) identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the
Iberian peninsula, at least from the
6th century BC. The Roman sources also use the term
Hispani to refer to the Iberians.
The term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences (Pre-Indo-European,
Celts and non-Celtic Indo-Europeans, such as the
Lusitanians). The other, more restricted ethnic sense, refers to the people living in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, which by the 6th century BC had absorbed cultural influences from the
Phoenicians and the
Greeks. This non-Indo-European cultural group spoke the
Iberian language from the 7th to the
1st century BC.
Other related peoples often termed Iberian are the
Turdetani, who were descendants of the
Bronze age Tartessos culture, the
Vascones and the Indo-European Lusitanians. The rest of the peninsula was inhabited by Celts or
Celtiberians groups.
Spain is a sovereign state largely located on the
Iberian Peninsula in southwestern
Europe, with archipelagos in the
Atlantic Ocean and
Mediterranean Sea, and several small territories on and near the north African coast. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with
Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by
France,
Andorra, and the
Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by
Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Along with France and
Morocco, it is one of only three countries to have both
Atlantic and
Mediterranean coastlines. Extending to 1,
214 km (754 mi), the
Portugal–Spain border is the longest uninterrupted border within the
European Union.
Spanish territory includes two archipelagos: the
Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean Sea, and the
Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast. It also includes two major exclaves,
Ceuta and Melilla, in continental
North Africa; and the islands and peñones (rocks) of
Alborán, Alhucemas,
Chafarinas and
Vélez de la Gomera. With an area of
505,990 km2 (195,
360 sq mi), Spain is the second largest country in
Western Europe and the European Union, and the fourth largest country in Europe. By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union.
Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,
000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient
Phoenician, Greek and
Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around
200 BCE, after which the region was named
Hispania. In the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by
Germanic tribes and later by the
Moors. Spain emerged as a unified country in the
15th century, following the marriage of the
Catholic Monarchs and the completion of the centuries-long reconquest, or
Reconquista, of the peninsula from the Moors in
1492. In the early modern period, Spain became one of history's first global colonial empires, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over
500 million
Spanish speakers, making Spanish the world's second most spoken first language.
Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a middle power and a developed country with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal
GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the
United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the
Council of Europe (CoE), the
Organization of Ibero-American States (
OEI), the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO), the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (
OECD), the
World Trade Organization (
WTO) and many other international organisations.
- published: 02 Jan 2016
- views: 432