Portal:Spain

The Spain Portal (Bienvenido al portal español)

The coat of arms of Spain

Spain (Spanish: España, [esˈpaɲa] ), or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España), is a country located in Southwestern Europe, with parts of its territory in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and Africa. It is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Africa. Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east by the Mediterranean Sea; to the south by Morocco in Ceuta and Melilla, and the United Kingdom in Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville, Málaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Bilbao.

In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by a mixture of Iberian and Celtic tribes, along with other local pre-Roman peoples. With the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the province of Hispania was established. Following the Romanization and Christianization of Hispania, the fall of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the inward migration of tribes from Central Europe, including the Visigoths, who formed the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centred in Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them Asturias, León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal; made an intermittent southward military expansion, known as the Reconquista, repelling Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 is often considered the formation of Spain as a country. (Full article...)

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A sketch of Miranda
A sketch of Miranda

Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez (March 28, 1750 – July 14, 1816), commonly known as Francisco de Miranda, was a Venezuelan revolutionary. Although his own plans for the independence of the Spanish American colonies failed, he is regarded as a forerunner of Simón Bolívar, who during the South American wars of independence successfully liberated a vast portion of South America. Miranda led a romantic and adventurous life. An idealist, he developed a visionary plan to liberate and unify all of Spanish America. His military initiatives failed in 1812, and he was handed over to his enemies, dying four years later in a Spanish prison dungeon. Within fourteen years of his death, most of Spanish America was independent.

Born and raised in Caracas, Miranda was the son of a wealthy merchant from the Canary Islands, a region of Spain. He traveled throughout Europe, becoming a social sensation and garnering support for the independence of Spanish America. He had made friends with many important leaders and political figures throughout Europe, such as British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, and Catherine the Great of Russia, with whom supposedly he had an affair (most historians do not give much credence to the affair story). In the American Revolutionary War, he commanded Spanish troops aiding American insurgents in Florida and Mississippi. In the United States, he met George Washington, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. He had a home in London, where he married a British lady and had two children. During this time he met Colonel William S. Smith secretary to John Adams's American Legation.

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In the news

2 November 2023 –
Large-scale warfare occurred in Europe about 5,000 years ago in neolithic period, reanalysis of skeletal remains in Spain suggests. (The Guardian) (Nature)
30 October 2023 – Rubiales affair
FIFA bars former Royal Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities for three years due to Rubiales' inappropriate conduct during the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup final in August. (AP)

26 October 2023 – 2023 Israel–Hamas war protests
Fans of Scotland's Celtic Football Club defy their club's directives and wave thousands of Palestinian flags during their team's Champions League match against Atlético Madrid. (Al Jazeera)

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WikiProject Spain

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WikiProject Basque  • WikiProject Catalan-speaking Countries  • WikiProject Galicia  • Spanish Translation of the Week

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This page was last updated at 2023-11-02 23:12 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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