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Conquistador

Conquistador

Conquistador (meaning "Conqueror" in the Spanish language) is the term used to refer to the soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who achieved the Conquista (this Spanish term is generally accepted by historians), i.e. brought much of the Americas and Asia Pacific under Spanish colonial rule between the 15th and 17th centuries. The Genoese Columbus's discovery of the New World in 1492 afforded Spain a head start in Colonization of the Americas, i.e. North, South America, continental Central and the Caribbean regions; the whole area was designated the West Indies, as the explorers originally presumed they had reached the (nonexistent) Atlantic coast of the Asia-Pacific Far East, which was being reached and soon colonized as 'East Indies', notably the archipelago of the Philippines and Guam.

Background

The leaders of Spanish expeditions to the New World called themselves conquistadores, a name expressing the similarity to the recently accomplished reconquista, the Christian crusades to conquer or (re)conquer the Iberian peninsula from the Muslim Moors (711-1492). They also evoked the name of Santiago Matamoros ("St James the Moor-killer") before going into battle against the pagan Native population of the Americas, who were considered rightless as long as not converted to Catholicism, so their lands were annexed as terra nullius with papal blessing, the only rival claim to be taken seriously was that of the Portuguese, settled after papal arbitration in the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Many conquistadores were poor, including some nobles (hidalgos) seeking a fortune in the West Indies, since there were limited prospects in Europe, The Crusades having ended. The honor rules for nobility banned them from manual work. Many were also fleeing the religious repression caused by the Spanish Inquisition.

History

New World

The first Spanish conquest in the Americas was the island of Hispaniola (presently shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic). From there, Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velázquez took Cuba. The first settlement on the mainland was Darién in Panama, settled by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1512. As these Caribbean regions proved no great treasury or endless supply of priceless spices, the 'disappointment' motivated further exploration, rather than a serious effort to make the best of the 'virgin' colonies, a foretaste of monumental economic mismanagement. The first immensely successful Conquistador was Hernán Cortés. Between 1520 and 1521, Cortés, along with some Native American allies, conquered the mighty Aztec empire, thus bringing present day Mexico (then called New Spain) under the dominion of the Spanish empire. Of comparable importance was the conquest of the South American Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro. Both were helped by smallpox and other European plagues that weakened the native populations. The diseases also killed the current leader of the Inca at the time facilating the war that Pizarro walked into upon his arrival. Both Pizarro and Cortes massacred droves of Incan and Aztec in an effort to frighten and terrorize the populations, which was not successful in either case. Combined with far greater forces of native allies, Cortes forces managed to besiege the Aztec capital city and destroy it. Rumours of golden cities (Cibola in North America and "El Dorado" in South America) caused several more expeditions to leave for the Americas, but many returned without finding any gold, finding less gold than expected, or finding Fool's Gold. The ransom that Sapa Inca Atahualpa paid for his freedom, was taken back to Spain, leading to additional Conquistador expeditions in South America and the Pacific. Imperial rule and the unwise use of the crown's share of the colonial proceeds would bankrupt the state repeatedly while the influx of precious metal caused towering inflation in Europe and Spain to largely lose the war against Protestantism, weakening of the Spanish domestic economy and, ultimately, imperial prominence shifting to rivals.

The Spanish Conquest in Asia - Pacific

The discovery of the Strait of Magellan in 1520 by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the tip of South America led to Spanish interest in the Pacific. The first of the Conquistadors to sail the vast Pacific Ocean was Miguel López de Legazpi in 1564 and arrived in the Philippine archipelago on 1565. Legazpi and his men destroyed the native settlements and conquered the islands for Spain. This paved the way for Spanish settlements in the Pacific.

Debate on the Human Rights of Natives

Most of the conquistadores cruelly mistreated the inhabitants of the regions they visited or conquered; killing, enslaving, raping and otherwise abusing them. Some Spaniards, notably the priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, defended Native Americans against the abuses of conquistadores. In 1542, Bartolomé de las Casas published A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias). His account is largely responsible for the passage of the new Spanish colonial laws known as the New Laws of 1542, which protected the rights of Native inhabitants. In 1615, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala sent the 1200 page New Chronicle and Good Government (El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno) to the King of Spain. This was a history of the Incas, their conquest, and their mistreatment written by a former Inca noble who had a guilty conscience in his old age about helping the Conquistadores and wanted to inform the King of the problems. It was lost to history until 1908, when it was discovered in the personal library of the Royal house of Denmark. Accounts of the behavior of Spanish Conquistadors from both inside and out were part of the source material for the stereotype of Spanish cruelty that came to be known as the Black Legend. Black Legend

References in Media

Conquistador were a featured unique unit for the Spanish civilization in the expansion to the computer game Age of Empires II; featured a scenario in which the player commands Spanish fleet against the Turkish armada, a reenactment of the Battle of Lepanto, they also appear in Civilization III Play the World in which the player commands Spanish crown in the times of Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Rock group Procol Harum also had a hit single with a song called Conquistador

List of Famous Conquistadores and Explorers


- Hernán Cortés (Mexico, 1518-1522, Honduras, 1524, Baja California, 1532-1536)
- Francisco Pizarro (Peru, 1509-1535)
- Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (southwestern United States, 1540-1542)
- Diego de Almagro (Peru, 1524-1535, Chile, 1535-1537)
- Vasco Núñez de Balboa (Panama, 1510-1519)
- Juan Ponce de León (Puerto Rico, 1508, Florida, 1513 and 1521)
- Pedro de Alvarado (Mexico, 1519-1521, Guatemala 1523 -1527, Peru, 1533-1535, Mexico, 1540-1541)
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (southwestern United States, 1527-1536, South America, 1540-1542)
- Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón (United States east coast, 1524-1527)
- Sebastián de Belalcázar (Ecuador and Colombia, 1533-1536)
- Gonzalo Pizarro (Peru, 1532-1542)
- Juan Pizarro, (Peru, 1532-1536)
- Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (Yucatán, 1517)
- Martín de Goiti, (Manila, Philippines, 1570-1571)
- Hernándo Pizarro, (Peru, 1532-1560)
- Juan de Grijalva (Yucatán, 1518)
- Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (Colombia, 1536-1537, Venezuela, 1569-1572)
- Miguel López de Legazpi, (Philippines, 1565-1571)
- Francisco de Montejo (Yucatan, 1527-1546)
- Juan de Salcedo, (Northern Philippines, 1570-1576)
- Nikolaus Federmann (Venezuela and Colombia, 1537-1539).
- Pánfilo de Narváez (Florida, 1527-1528)
- Diego de Nicuesa (Panama, 1506-1511)
- Cristóbal de Olid (Honduras, 1523-1524)
- Francisco de Orellana (Amazon River, 1541-1543)
- Hernando de Soto (southeastern United States, 1539-1542)
- Inés Suárez, (Chile, 1541)
- Martín de Ursua, Peten region of Guatemala, 1696-1697
- Pedro de Valdivia (Chile, 1540-1552)
- Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (Cuba, 1511-1519)
- Pedro Menendez de Aviles (Florida, 1565 - 1567)

Additional Info


- Spanish conquest of Peru
- Spanish colonization of the Americas
- Encomienda
- Repartimiento
- List of conquistadors The book, Born In Blood And Fire: Concise History of Latin America by John Charles Chasteen is a good summary of the history of Latin America.
- Category:Spanish colonization of the Americas Category:Spanish colonial period in the Philippines Category:Spanish language ja:コンキスタドール Insert formula here

Spanish language

:This article is about the international language known as Spanish or Castilian. For other languages spoken in Spain see Languages of Spain. Spanish or Castilian (Spanish: español or castellano) is an Iberian Romance language, and the fourth most widely spoken language in the world according to some sources, while other sources list it as the second or third most spoken language. It is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including non-native speakers (according to 1999 estimates). Some assert that, after English, Spanish can now be considered the second most important language in the world (probably replacing even French), due to its increased usage in the United States, the high birth rate in most of the countries where it is official, the growing economies of the Spanish-speaking world, its enormous influence on the global music market, and simply due to the broad number of areas on the Earth's surface that the language is spoken in.

"Spanish" or "Castilian"

Spaniards tend to call this language español when contrasting it with languages of other states (for example: in a list with French and English), but call it castellano (Castilian, from the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages of Spain (such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan). In some parts of Spain, mainly where the people speak Galician, Basque, and Catalan, it is considered offensive to call the language español, as that is what Francisco Franco called it during his reign. For the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, speakers of the language in some areas refer to it as español, and in others castellano is more common. Castellano is the name given to Spanish language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela. Some philologists use Castilian only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use Spanish for its modern form. Castilian can be also a subdialect of Spanish spoken in most parts of modern day Castile. It would have a series of characteristics and a specific pronunciation different to the one of Andalusia or Aragon for example, where they would speak different subdialects.

Classification and related languages

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European, descended largely from Latin and having much in common with its European geographical neighbors. Spanish is related to several languages in terms of phonology, grammar and orthography. Of these, Portuguese is perhaps one of the most similar in terms of major languages. However, Spanish is also closely related to Catalan, Asturian, Galician and several other Romance languages. Spanish has fewer similarities with French and Italian but shares strong ties due to Latin roots. Portuguese is orthographically similar in many ways to Spanish but it has a very distinctive phonology. A speaker of one of these languages may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other (although generally it is easier for a Portuguese native speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around). Compare, for example: :Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar. (Portuguese) :Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish) Some less common phrasings and word choices have closer cognates in Spanish because Portuguese has managed to retain a much larger vocabulary, with stronger Latin heritage: :Ela cerra sempre a janela antes de cear. (less common Portuguese) (Which translates as "She always closes the window before having dinner.") In some places, Spanish and Portuguese are spoken almost interchangeably. Portuguese speakers are generally able to read Spanish, and Spanish speakers are generally able to read Portuguese, even if they cannot understand the spoken language. In fact, the number of bilingual speakers in Brazil (where Portuguese is the official language) has greatly risen because nearly every nation bordering Brazil is Spanish speaking.

History

The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Celtiberian, Basque and Arabic, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance languages as well. During the Reconquista, this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in northern Morocco. The first Latin to Spanish dictionary (Gramática de la Lengua Castellana) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabella of Castile was presented with the book, she asked, What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?, to which he replied, Ma'am, the language is the instrument of the Empire. From the 16th century on, the language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines by Spanish colonization. In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union. The majority of its speakers are confined to the Western Hemisphere, Europe and the Spanish territories in Africa (Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla). With approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, Mexico boasts the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (c. 44 million), Argentina (39 million) and the United States of America (U.S. residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home number 31 million) [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=134303235020]. Spanish is the official and most important language in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (co-official French), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Puerto Rico (co-official English), Spain (co-official Catalan/Valencian, Galician and Basque), Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara (co-official Arabic). In Belize, Spanish holds no official recognition, however, it is the native tongue of about 50% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 20%. It is arguably the most important and widely-spoken on a popular level, but English remains the sole official language. In the United States, Spanish is spoken by three-quarters of its 41.3 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. See Spanish in the United States for further information. In Brazil, Spanish has obtained an important status as a second language among young students and many skilled professionals. In recent years, with Brazil decreasing its reliance on trade with the USA and Europe and increasing trade and ties with its Spanish-speaking neighbours (especially as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc), much stress has been placed on bilingualism and Spanish proficiency in the country. On July 07 2005, the National Congress of Brazil gave final approval to a bill that makes Spanish a second language in the country’s public and private primary schools [http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=5996]. The close genetic relationship between the two languages, along with the fact that Spanish is the dominant and official language of almost every country that borders Brazil, adds to the popularity. Standard Spanish and Ladino (Judæo-Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews) may also be spoken natively by some Spanish-descended Brazilians, immigrant workers from neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries and Brazilian Sephardim respectively, who have maintained it as their home language. Additionally, in Brazil's border states that have authority over their educational systems, Spanish has been taught for years. In many other border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayo-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken. In European countries other than Spain and Andorra (where it holds no official status), it may be spoken by some of their Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, primarily in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where there is a strong community in London. There has been a sharp increase in the popularity of Spanish in the UK over the last few years. It is spoken by much of the population of Gibraltar, though English remains the only official language. Yanito, an English-Spanish mixed language is also spoken. Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is the seventh most spoken language in Australia. It is also spoken by the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, but Spanish has long since been forgotten, and now only exists as an influence on the local native languages. In Asia the Spanish language has long been in decline. Spanish ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in 1987, and it is now spoken by less than 0.01% of the population; 2,658 speakers (1990 Census). However, the sole existing Spanish-Asiatic creole language, Chabacano, is also spoken by an additional 0.4% of the Filipino population; 292,630 (1990 census). Most other Philippine languages contain generous quantities of Spanish loan words. Among other Asian countries, Spanish may also be spoken by pockets of ex-immigrant communities, such as Mexican-born ethnic Chinese deported to China or third and fourth generation ethnic Japanese Peruvians returning to their ancestral homeland of Japan. Spanish is also spoken by segments of the populations in Aruba, Canada, Curaçao, Israel (both standard Spanish and Ladino), northern Morocco (both standard Spanish and Ladino), Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey (Ladino), and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In Antarctica, the territorial claims and permanent bases made by Argentina, Chile, Peru and Spain also place Spanish as the official and working language of these enclaves.

Variations

There are important variations among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the North Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laísmo of this dialect is deprecated). Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: tú, usted, and in some parts of Latin America, vos (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, tú and vos are informal and used with friends (though in Spain vos is considered a highly exalted archaism that is now confined to liturgy). Usted is universally regarded as the formal form, and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers. The pronoun vosotros is the plural form of tú in most of Spain, although in the Americas (and some particular southern-Spain cities such as Cádiz) it is replaced with ustedes. It is remarkable that the informal use of ustedes in southern Spain does not keep the proper pronoun-verb agreement: while the formal form of "you go" would be ustedes van, in Cádiz the informal form would be constructed as ustedes vais, making use of the second person of the plural instead of the third (which constitutes the formal construction). Vos is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in various countries around Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, is it also the standard form used in the media, whereas media in other voseante countries continue to use usted or tú. Vos may also be present in other countries as a limited regionalism. Its use, depending on country and region, can be considered the accepted standard or reproached as sub-standard and considered as speech of the ignorant and uneducated. The interpersonal situations in which the employment of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions. Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural; ustedes (formal/familiar). Meanwhile, in Spain there are two; ustedes (formal) and vosotros (familiar/informal). The RAE (Real Academia Española), in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a controlling influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides. In part due to this influence, and also because of other socio-historical reasons, a neutral standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Grammar

Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but small noun declension and limited pronominal declension. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.) As for syntax, the unmarked sentence word order is Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. Spanish is right-branching, using prepositions, and with adjectives generally coming after nouns. Spanish is also pro-drop (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and verb-framed.

Sounds

The consonantal system of Castilian Spanish, by the 16th century, underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some nearby Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Catalan:
- The initial , that had evolved into a vacillating , was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling).
- The voiced labiodental fricative (that was written u or v) merged with the bilabial oclusive (written b). Orthographically, b and v do not correspond to different phonemes in contemporary Spanish, excepting some areas in Spain, particularly the ones influenced by Catalan/Valencian and some Andalusia.
- The voiced alveolar fricative (that was written s between vowels) merged with the voiceless (that was written s, or ss between vowels).
- The voiced alveolar affricate (that was written z) merged with the voiceless (that was written ç, ce, ci), and then evolved into the interdental , now written z, ce, ci. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with as well. Notice that the ç or c with cedilla was in its origin a Spanish letter, although is no longer used.
- The voiced postalveolar fricative (that was written j, ge, gi) merged with the voiceless (that was written x, as in Quixote), and then evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound , now written j, ge, gi. The consonantal system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino, the language spoken by the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "I walk" whereas caminó (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish pronounces all syllables at a more or less constant tempo, it is said to be a syllable-timed language.

Writing system

The pronunciation of any Spanish word can be perfectly predicted from its written form. Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of ñ (eñe). Ch and ll also have their own places in the alphabet (a, b, c, ch, d, ..., l, ll, m, n, ñ, ...). Since 1990, however, words containing the letters ch and ll have been alphabetized as though spelled with the separate letters c - h and l - l. The letter u sometimes carries diaeresis (ü) after the letter g, and the stressed vowel carries an acute accent (á) in many words. Exclamatory and interrogative clauses begin with inverted question and exclamation marks.

Examples of Spanish

Note, the third column uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, the standard for linguists, to transcribe the sounds. There are several examples of travellers' vocabulary and one literary reference. You can listen to these words being read out. Both the transcription and the recording represent standard Castilian pronunciation. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (opening sentence).

See also


- Real Academia Española
- Common phrases in Spanish
- List of English words of Spanish origin
- Names given to the Spanish language
- Spanish proverbs
- Spanish language poets
- Spanish Creole
- Portuñol
- Papiamento, Chavacano language, Spanglish, Yanito, Palenquero
- Rock en español
- Latin Union
- Islenos

Local varieties


- Argentine Spanish
- Colombian Spanish
- Cuban Spanish
- Mexican Spanish
- Panamanian Spanish
- Puerto Rican Spanish
- Rioplatense Spanish
- Spanish in the United States
- Spanish in the Philippines
- Venezuelan Spanish
- Central American Spanish

External links

About the Spanish language


-
- [http://www.rae.es Official page of the RAE] (in Spanish)
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa Ethnologue report for Spanish]
- [http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/index.html Spanish Language & Linguistics Website]
- [http://assets.cambridge.org/0521805872/sample/0521805872WS.pdf PDF: A history of the Spanish language]
- [http://www.sispain.org/english/language/worldwid.html Numbers of speakers by countries]
- [http://www.vistawide.com/spanish/why_spanish.htm Why learn Spanish?] 10 reasons for learning Spanish
- [http://spanish.about.com Spanish Language] Collection of lessons and other resources
- [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2444/splatin.html Spanish evolution from Latin]
- [http://www.trustedtranslations.com/spanish_language.asp Spanish Language Characteristics] Some characteristics of Spanish Language

Dictionaries


- [http://buscon.rae.es/diccionario/drae.htm DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE] (Spanish-spanish)
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Spanish-english/ Spanish — English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.diccionarios.com Diccionarios.com]
- [http://www.my-spanish-dictionary.com/ An English-Spanish Dictionary]
- [http://www.tododiccionarios.com/ Tododiccionarios.com] a directory of reference works in English or Spanish, classified by subject, with several thousand links.
- [http://spanishdict.com/ Spanishdict.com] Another Spanish-English dictionary.
- [http://wordreference.com/ Wordreference.com] Comprehensive Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary.
- [http://www.tomisimo.org/ Tomísimo.org] A Spanish-English dictionary.

Grammatical help


- [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Spanish Spanish grammar Wikibook]
- [http://www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm Spanish Grammar Tutorial - with quizzes, tests, and oral activities]
- [http://tchaidze.com/spangram/tenses.html#correspondence Usage of Tenses]
- [http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/courses/accents.htm Use of written accent marks in Spanish]
- [http://verbs.obrist.org Spanish Verb Forms] — Search and conjugate Spanish verbs.
- [http://www.helloworld.com.es/english/quick%20reference/grammar.htm Grammar and more] Examples, Uses, Explanations of Grammar Points and a Free Personal Spanish Verb Conjugator

Tutorials


- [http://www.declan-software.com/spanish Spanish vocabulary learning software with audio]
- [http://spanish.mypage.org Spanish for beginners and travelers]
- [http://learno.com/spanish/index.html Free Learno.com online Spanish tutorial]
- [http://www.listenandlearn.org Practice Spanish Online with Audio Stories]
- [http://www.studyspanish.com/ StudySpanish.com] Popular website for beginners
- [http://www.angelfire.com/ego/pdf/ng/argentina/arsp.html Rioplatense Spanish] Spanish from the River Plate basin
- [http://www.spanish-kit.net Spanish-kit.net] Free Downloadable Spanish grammars, and vocabulary learning tools.
- [http://www.fridaspanish.com Fridaspanish.com Learn Spanish] Mexican Spanish
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/spanish.html Free Spanish Language Tutorial at ielanguages.com]
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/Spanish_Language_main.html Free Spanish quizzes with audio by a native speaker]
- [http://www.spanicity.com/ SpaniCity] Free Spanish lessons, sounds, grammar and dictionary
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=14&learn-Spanish/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in Spanish] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- Spanish phrasebook on Wikitravel

Resources


- [http://www.spanishblogger.com Spanish Blogs & Weblog Directory]
- Category:Languages of Spain Category:Languages of Argentina Category:Languages of Belize Category:Languages of Bolivia Category:Languages of Chile Category:Languages of Colombia Category:Languages of Costa Rica Category:Languages of Ecuador Category:Languages of El Salvador Category:Languages of Guatemala Category:Languages of Honduras Category:Languages of Mexico Category:Languages of Nicaragua Category:Languages of Panama Category:Languages of Paraguay Category:Languages of Peru Category:Languages of Uruguay Category:Languages of Venezuela ja:スペイン語 ko:에스파냐어 simple:Spanish language th:ภาษาสเปน

Americas

The Americas refers to the American landmass, comprised of the entirety of the North American and South American continents and associated lands. The term is a relatively recent and less ambiguous alternative to the name America, which may refer to either the whole American landmass or the United States of America. The former, and original, usage is now often considered archaic in English-speaking nations, but still in use in other areas, in which the Americas is often considered to form a single continent, and therefore called America (singular). An analogous term to America or (the) America(s) as used to mean a "twin (or double) continent" is the use of Eurasia.

Peoples of the Americas

Names

Main article: Use of the word American Many people living in the Americas refer to themselves as American. Meanwhile, in most of the English-speaking world (e.g., Canada), this will only refer to a citizen of the United States of America.

Ethnology

The American population is made up of the descendents of three large ethnic groups and their combinations: the native inhabitants of the Americas, being "Indians" (or "Native Americans" or "Amerindians"), Eskimos, and Aleuts; Europeans (of mainly Spanish, British, Irish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Dutch, origin); and black Africans. There are also more recent immigrants, such as from the Balkan, Central Europe and Central and Eastern Asia. The majority of the American people live in Latin America. Most of Latin America is Spanish-speaking, with Portuguese-speaking Brazil as the major exception. Canada and the United States are linguistically, culturally and economically quite different from Latin America, with the whites being more predominantly of North European ancestry. As part of the more prosperous northern world, the United States especially has long overshadowed and attempted to manipulate southern Latin America, most notably during the Cold War.

Languages

Various languages, both European and native, are spoken in America. Primary:
- - spoken by approximately 350 million people in many nations, regions, islands, and communities throughout the continent.
- - spoken by approximately 300 million in the United States, Canada, Belize and islands of the Caribbean
- - spoken by approximately 185 million in Brazil
- - spoken by approximately 7 million in Québec and 2 million in the rest of Canada; in the Caribbean, especially in Haiti; and in French Guiana.
- (avañe'ẽ) - native language spoken by approximately 6 million people in Paraguay, and regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil.
- Mapudungun (or Mapuche) - native language spoken by approximately 440,000 people in Chile and Argentina. Others:
- Aymará - native language spoken in the Andes, especially in Bolivia.
- - spoken in the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, and Suriname
- Quiché and other Maya languages - native languages spoken in Guatemala and southern Mexico.
- Quechua - native language spoken in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile and Argentina.
- - creole language, based in French and various African languages, spoken by 7.8 million in Haiti.
- Nahuatl - native language of central Mexico with 1.5 million speakers Most of the non-native languages have, to different degrees, evolved differently from the mother country, but are usually still mutually intelligible. Some have combined though, which has even resulted in completely new languages, such as Papiamentu, which is a combination of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch (representing the respective colonisers), native Arawak, various African languages and, more recently, English. Because of immigration, there are many communities where other languages are spoken from all parts of the world, especially in the United States and Canada, two important destinations for immigrants.

Naming of America

African languages The earliest known use of the name America for the continents of the Americas dates from 1507. It appears on a globe and a large map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. An accompanying book, Cosmographiae Introductio, explains that the name was derived from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, Americus Vespucius, in its feminine form, America, as the other continents all have Latin feminine names. However, as Dr. Basil Cottle (Author, Dictionary of Surnames, 1967) points out, new countries or continents are never named after a person's first name, always after their second name. Thus, America should really have become Vespucci Land or Vespuccia if the Italian explorer really gave his name to the newly discovered continent. Christopher Columbus, who had first brought the continents' existence to the attention of Renaissance era voyagers, had died in 1506 (believing, to the end, that he'd discovered and conquered part of India) and could not protest Waldseemüller's decision. A few alternative theories regarding the continents' naming have been proposed, but none of them have any widespread acceptance. One alternative first proposed by a Bristol antiquary and naturalist, Alfred Hudd, was that America is derived from Richard Amerike, a merchant from Bristol, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497. Supposedly, Bristol fishermen had been visiting the coast of North America for at least a century before Columbus' voyage and Waldseemüller's maps are alleged to incorporate information from the early English journeys to North America. The theory holds that a variant of Amerike's name appeared on an early English map (of which however no copies survive) and that this was the true inspiration for Waldseemüller. Another theory, first advanced by Jules Marcou in 1875 and later recounted by novelist Jan Carew, is that the name America derives from the district of Amerrique in Nicaragua. The gold-rich district of Amerrique was purportedly visited by both Vespucci and Columbus, for whom the name became synonymous with gold. According to Marcou, Vespucci later applied the name to the New World, and even changed the spelling of his own name from Alberigo to Amerigo to reflect the importance of the discovery. Vespucci's role in the naming issue, like his exploratory activity, is unclear. Some sources say that he was unaware of the widespread use of his name to refer to the new landmass. Others hold that he promulgated a story that he had made a secret voyage westward and sighted land in 1491, a year before Columbus. If he did indeed make such claims, they backfired, and only served to prolong the ongoing debate on whether the "Indies" were really a new land, or just an extension of Asia.

See also


- Latin America
- Central America
- Middle America
- Alternative words for American
- Use of the word American

External links


- [http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/surgery/america.html The Naming of America]
- [http://texashistory.unt.edu/permalink/meta-pth-2422 America noviter delineata / M. Merian, fecit.] 1633 Map of North and South America, hosted by the Portal to Texas History. Category:Americas zh-min-nan:Bí-chiu ko:아메리카 ja:アメリカ州 simple:The Americas th:ทวีปอเมริกา

Asia-Pacific

The Pacific Rim is a political and economic term used to designate the countries on the edges of the Pacific Ocean as well as the various island nations within the region. Tokyo is possibly the most important commercial and cultural capital of the Pacific Rim. Other centres are Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Sydney. Honolulu is the headquarters of various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations of the Pacific Rim including the East-West Center and RIMPAC. The region offers great diversity — with the economic dynamism of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore; the mastery of technology in Japan, Korea and the western United States; the natural resources of Australia, Canada, Philippines, and the Russian Far East; the human resources of China and Indonesia; the agricultural productivity of Chile, New Zealand Philippines, and the United States among others. Some theorists opine that with the relative decline of the old centers of industrialism in Europe and eastern North America, the center of world economic activity may refocus on the Pacific Rim.

See also


- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
- Pacific Century
- Pacific Rim Capitals (Chief capitals and cities in the Pacific Rim)
- Pacific Ring of Fire

Readings

Clausen, A. W. THE PACIFIC ASIAN COUNTRIES: A FORCE FOR GROWTH IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. Los Angeles: World Affairs Council, 1984. ED 244 852. Cleveland, Harlan. THE FUTURE OF THE PACIFIC BASIN: A KEYNOTE ADDRESS. New Zealand: Conference on New Zealand's Prospects in the Pacific Region, 1983. Gibney, Frank B., Ed. WHOLE PACIFIC CATALOG. Los Angeles, CA: l981. "The Pacific Basin Alliances, Trade and Bases." GREAT DECISIONS 1987. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1987. ED 283 743. Rogers, Theodore S., and Robert L. Snakenber. "Language Studies in the Schools: A Pacific Prospect." EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES 21 (1982): 12-15. Wedemeyer, Dan J., and Anthony J. Pennings, Eds. TELECOMMUNICATIONS--ASIA, AMERICAS, PACIFIC: PTC 86. "Evolution of the Digital Pacific." Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Telecommunications Council: Honolulu, Hawaii, 1986. ED 272 147. West, Philip, and Thomas Jackson. THE PACIFIC RIM AND THE BOTTOM LINE. Bloomington, Indiana, 1987.

External link


- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-929/rim.htm Teaching about the Pacific Rim] Category:Pacific Ocean Category:Country classifications ko:환태평양

Spain

The Kingdom of Spain (Spanish and Galician: Reino de España or España; Catalan: Regne d'Espanya; Basque: Espainiako Erresuma). To west (and, in Galicia, south), it borders Portugal. To south, it borders Gibraltar and Morocco. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in north Africa, 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 "rocks" (peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil (disputed). In the Northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.

History

Main article: History of Spain

Prehistory

The aboriginal peoples of the Iberian peninsula, consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of Iberians. This may have included the Basques, the only pre-Celtic people in Iberia surviving to the present day as a separate ethnic group. The most important culture of this period is that of the city of Tartessos. Beginning in the 9th century BC, Celtic tribes entered the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees and settled throughout the peninsula, becoming the Celtiberians. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1,100 BC Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

Roman Empire

The Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century BC, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania. It was divided in Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic; and, during the Roman Empire, Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania in the southwest. Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan were born in Spain. The Spanish Bishops held the Council at Elvira in 306. Many of Spain's present languages, religion, and laws originate from this period.

Muslim Spain

Main articles: Al-Andalus and Reconquista In the 8th century, nearly all the Iberian peninsula, which had been under Visigothic rule, was quickly conquered (from 711), by Muslims (the Moors), who had crossed over from North Africa, as part of the conquests of the Christian kingdoms there by the religiously inspired Umayyad empire. Only three small counties in the north of Spain kept their independence: Asturias, Navarra and Aragon, which eventually became kingdoms. Very soon the Muslim emirate split into small kingdoms. Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves, with the Christians driving the Moorish forces out of the northern most parts of the peninsula within a few decades. The Muslim taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, and the Jewish population of Iberia set the basis of Sephardic culture. Much of Spain's distinctive art originates from this seven-hundred-year period, and many Arabic words made their way into Castilian (Spanish) and Catalan, and from them to other European languages. The Moorish capital was Córdoba, in the southern portion of Spain known as Andalucía. During the time of Arab occupation, large populations of Jews, Christians and Muslims living in close quarters, and at its peak some non-Muslims were appointed to high offices. Though its tolerance has been exaggerated and romanticised by 19th century scholars it did produce some real achievements. At its best it produced great architecture, art, and Muslim and Jewish scholars played a great part in reviving the study of ancient western culture and philosophy, making their own important contributions to it, and becoming one of the most important ways by which these studies were revived in Europe. However there were also restrictions and imposts on non-Muslims, which tended to grow after the death of Al-Hakam II in 976, and worsened after the fall of Al-Andalus in 1031. Later invasions of stricter Muslim groups from north Africa even led to persecutions of non-Muslims, forcing some (including some Muslim scholars) to seek safety in the then still relatively tolerant city of Toledo after its Christian reconquest in 1085. 1085] The long, convoluted period of expansion of the Christian kingdoms, beginning in 722, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion, is called the Reconquista. As early as 739, the northwestern region of Galicia, which became one of the most important centres of western medieval Christian pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela, had been liberated from Moorish occupation by forces from neighbouring Asturias. The 1085 conquest of the central city of Toledo had largely brought to an end the reconquest of the northern half of Iberia. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 heralded the collapse, within a few decades, of the great Moorish strongholds, such as Seville and Córdoba, in the south-west. By the middle of the thirteenth century most of the Iberian peninsula had been reconquered, leaving only Granada as a small tributary state in the south. It ended in 1492, when Isabella and Ferdinand captured the southern city of Granada, the last Moorish city in Spain. The Treaty of Granada [http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/treaty1492.html] guaranteed religious toleration toward Muslims while Jews were expelled that year. At Ferdinand's insistance the Spanish Inquisition had been established and Tomás de Torquemada was appointed as its first Inquisitor General in 1482. Behind much of the real religious intolerance was always the ever present fear that the Muslims might assist another Muslim invasion. Furthermore Aragonese labourers were angered by the use of Moorish workers by landlords to undercut them. A 1499 Muslim uprising was crushed and was followed by the first of the expulsions of Muslims, in 1502. The year 1492 was also marked by the discovery of the New World. Isabel I funded the voyages of Columbus. In their contests with the French army, Spanish forces relied more on well trained, highly mobile, regular soldiers and eventually achieved success with the organised tactical use of hand guns against armoured French knights, in the Italian Wars from 1494. Already considerable powers, these wars saw the emergence of the new combined Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon as a European great power.

From the Renaissance to the 19th Century

Until the late of the 15th century, Castile and Léon, Aragon and Navarre were independent states, with independent languages, monarchs, armies and, in the case of Aragon and Castile, two empires: the former with one in the Mediterranean and the latter with a new, rapidly growing, one in the Americas. The process of political unification continued into the early sixteenth century. It was the unification of these separate Iberian empires that became the base of what is in now referred to as the Spanish Empire. By 1512, most of the kingdoms of present-day Spain were politically unified, although not as a modern, centralized state (in contemporary minds, "Spain" was a geographic term meaning Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal, not the present-day state called Spain). The grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor but called in Spain Carlos I, extended his crown to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. The unification of Iberia was complete when Charles V's son, Philip II, became King of Portugal in 1580, as well as of the other Iberian Kingdoms (collectively known as "Spain" at that time). During the 16th century, under the reigns of Charles V and Philip II, Spain became the most powerful nation in Europe. The Spanish Empire covered most territories of South and Central America, Mexico, some of Eastern Asia (including The Philippines), the Iberian peninsula (including the Portuguese empire from 1580), southern Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. It was the first empire about which it was said that the sun did not set. It was a time of daring explorations by sea and by land, the opening up of new trade routes across oceans, conquests and the beginning of European colonization. Not only did this lead to the arrival of ever increasing quantities of precious metals, spices and luxuries, and new agricultural plants, that had a great influence on the development of Europe, but the explorers, soldiers, traders and missionaries also brought back with them a flood of knowledge that radically transformed the European understanding of the world, ending conceptions inherited from medieval times. The treasure fleet across the Atlantic and the Manila galleons across the Pacific made it the wealthiest and most powerful nation in Europe, but the rapidly rising influx of silver and gold from the colonies in the Americas throughout the 16th century ultimately resulted in economically damaging rampant inflation and led to economic depression by the 17th century. Religious and dynastic wars supported by the Spanish crown, especially in the Netherlands, also greatly burdened the empire's economy. 17th century] In 1640, under Philip IV, the centralist policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares provoked wars in Portugal and Catalonia. Portugal became an independent kingdom again, taking with it its empire, and Catalonia enjoyed some years of French-supported independence but was quickly returned to the Spanish Crown, except Roussillon. A series of long and costly wars and revolts followed in the early 17th century, and began a steady decline of Spanish power in Europe from the 1640s. Controversy over succession to the throne consumed the country and much of Europe during the first years of the 18th century (see War of the Spanish Succession). It was only after this war ended and a new dynasty—the French Bourbons—was installed that a true Spanish state was established when the absolutist first Bourbon king Philip V of Spain in 1707 dissolved the parliamentarist Aragon court and unified the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon into a single, unified Kingdom of Spain, abolishing many of the regional privileges and autonomies (fueros) that had hampered Habsburg rule. The British abandoned the conflict after Utrecht (1713), which led to Barcelona's easy defeat by the absolutists in 1714. The National Day of Catalonia still commemorates this defeat. Of note during the 17th century was the cultural efflorescence now known as the Spanish Golden Age. Historically, the period of the mid 17th century to the mid 20th century was a failure for Spain compared to north western Europe. The extended, lingering decline of the Spanish empire was due in large part, ironically, to its spectacular successes in the 15th and 16th centuries that led to the centuries of the treasure fleets bringing back silver and gold into the country from the American mines. These shipments engendered inflation (a fact noticed by the School of Salamanca) that ate away at Spanish trades and commerce by causing local goods to be uncompetitive, and eventually making the country almost totally dependant upon imports by the mid seventeenth century, which proved disasterous as the silver mines became exhausted. Greatly worsening matters were the constant wars defending the world empire against envious European rivals, internal successions and the European wars (Eighty Years War and Thirty Years War), where Spain's resources were constantly drained defending the Habsburg's dynastic and religious interests, including the Counter Reformation. From the early 17th century the government sought to meet its needs by tampering with the silver content of the currency, leading to severe bouts of inflation and deflation. The terrible burden of taxes on the productive classes of the country, and the financial instability led to the collapse of the Castilian economy to the point where people reverted to bartering in the 1620s. A severe decline in food production ensued. The result was a steep real economic and demographic decline during the 17th century, especially in empire's overburdened lynchpin, Castile, aggravated by failed harvests and plagues. Habsburg policies that entrenched the privileges and exemptions of the nobility (with its roots back in the Castilian War of the Communities) and the Church (as part of support of the Counter Reformation), with a great extension of Church lands, also played a decisive part in the undermining the Spanish economy and in curtailing the spread of modern thought. This was in stark contrast to the diminishing status of both institutions in rivals France, England and the Netherlands. The resentment of ordinary peasants and labourers would find expression in implicating the nobility of Moorish ancestory and the churchmen of hypocrisy. These accusations found their way into the theatre and literature of the time. The beggary that grew rapidly from the late 16th century forced many to live by their wits and inspired the popular picaresque genre of literature. Following the wars of Spanish succession at its commencment, the 18th century saw a long, slow recovery, with an expansion of the iron and steel industries in the Basque country, some increase in trade and a recovery in food production and population. The Bourbons drew on the French system in trying to modernise the administration and economy, in which it was more successful in the former than the latter. However in the last two decades of the century there was a rapid growth (from a relatively low base) in general trade after the opening up of free trade within the empire (ending the south's monopoly), and even the beginnings of an industrialisation of the textile industry in Catalonia. But this promising late eighteenth century surge was shortlived, being totally disrupted by the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, that preceeded the loss of the vast mainland American territories and plunged the country into endemic political instability, which lasted until 1939. The Napoleonic incursion led to a fierce guerilla war (Peninsular War) and saw the first wide spread appearance of Spanish nationalism. In the latter half of the 19th century, Spanish Catalonia became a center of Spain's industrialization. Pockets of relative modernity in Catalonia and the north would appear, but Spain's relative economic and political decline overall mirrored in general the fate of other regions of southern Europe such as Portugal, the Italian states, the Balkans, and much of central and eastern Europe, as much of the rapidly growing global oceanic trade, pioneered by the Iberian countries, was diverted to northwestern Europe. Spain lost all of its remaining old colonies in the Caribbean region and Asia-Pacific region at the end of the 19th century, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and a large number of Pacific islands to the United States after the Spanish-American War of 1898. However "the Disaster" of 1898, as Spanish-American War was called, led to Spain's cultural revival (Generation of '98) in which there was much critical self examination, and relieved it from the burden of its last major colonies. However political stability in such a dispersed and variegated land, caught between pockets of modernity and large areas of extreme rural backwardness and strongly differentiated regional identities would elude the country for some decades yet, and was ultimately imposed only by a brutal dictatorship in 1939.

20th century

The 20th century initially brought little peace; colonization of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea was attempted. A period of dictatorial rule (1923 - 1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country and Catalonia and gave voting rights to women. However, in July 1936, against a backdrop of increasing political polarization, anti-clericalism and pressure from all sides, coupled with growing and unchecked political violence, the Republic was faced with an attempted military coup d'etat led by right-wing army generals. Although the coup initially failed, the ensuing Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the victory of the nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco and supported by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the United States of America, increasingly concerned about communism. The Republican side received tepid support from European democracies, which left the Soviet Union and idealist voluntary International Brigades as the only supporters of the legitimate democratic Republican rule. The Spanish Civil War has been called the first battle of the Second World War. After the civil war, General Francisco Franco ruled a nation exhausted politically and economically. During the Second World War Franco, under extreme pressure (Hitler had brought his army to the border of Spain after invading France), opted to remain neutral arguing that Spain could not afford a new war, but, as a concession to his civil war backer, authorised volunteers to go to the Russian front to fight the Soviet Union in an anti-Communist crusade in what came to be known as the Blue Division. The resentment of Franco's brutality towards the more modern pro-Republican regions of Catalonia and the Basque country, whose distinctive languages and identity he suppressed during his long reign, continues to fuel strong separatist movements to this day. The only official party in Spain at the time of Franco´s regime was the Falange party founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. Primo de Rivera denied his party was fascist, calling fascism fundamentaly false. His political philosophy was based on Catholicism, saying that man "carries eternal values" and carries "a soul that is capable of damning or saving itself". He called for "the greatest respect for...human dignity, for the integrity of man and for his liberty." Primo de Rivera called for what he called "organic democracy". Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera was executed in Alicante in 1936. After World War II, being one of few surviving fascist regimes in Europe, Spain was politically and economically isolated and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became strategically important for U.S. president Eisenhower to establish a military presence in the Iberian peninsula. This opening to Spain was aided by Franco's opposition to communism. In the 1960s, more than a decade later than other western European countries, Spain began to enjoy economic growth and gradually transformed into a modern industrial economy with a thriving tourism sector. Growth continued well into the 1970s, with Franco's government going to great lengths to shield the Spanish people from the effects of the oil crisis. Upon the death of the dictator General Franco in November 1975, his personally-designated heir Prince Juan Carlos assumed the position of king and head of state. With the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, some regions — Basque Country, Navarra— were given complete financial autonomy, and many — Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia— were given some political autonomy, which was then soon extended to all Spanish regions, resulting in a quite decentralized territorial organization in Western Europe. Remaining dysfunctionalities, such as unlimited financial strain on contributor regions such as Catalonia make their people aim for a more equilibrated system, such as those enjoyed in Germany, where finantial contribution to the whole can never exceed 4% of a Land's GDP. In the Basque Country pro-peace Basque and Spanish nationalisms coexist with radical nationalism supportive of the terrorist group ETA, which remains one of the biggest problems faced by Spanish citizens. Adolfo Suárez González, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo Bustelo, after an attempted coup d'état in 1981, Felipe González Márquez (when Spain joined NATO and European Union), José María Aznar López and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero have been prime ministers of Spain.

21st century

On March 11, 2004, a series of bombs exploded in commuter trains in Madrid, Spain. These resulted in 191 people dead and 1,460 wounded. It also had a significant effect on the upcoming elections in Spain, due in part to the ruling government's insistence that the ETA was the prime suspect in the bombings, even as the evidence of Muslim extremist terrorism rapidly emerged from the police investigation and the international press. see the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings article for more information :See also: List of Spanish monarchs, Kings of Spain family tree

Politics

Main article: Politics of Spain Politics of Spain.]] Spain is a constitutional monarchy, with a hereditary monarch and a bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generales or National Assembly. The executive branch consists of a Council of Ministers presided over by the President of Government (comparable to a prime minister), proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative elections. 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 or 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. Spain is, at present, what is called a State of Autonomies, formally unitary but, in fact, functioning as a Federation of Autonomous Communities, each one with different powers (for instance, some have their own educational and health systems, others do not) and laws. There are some differences within this system, since power has been devolved from the centre to the periphery asymmetrically, with some autonomous governments (especially those dominated by nationalist parties) seeking a more federalist—or even confederate—kind of relationship with Spain, now the Central Government is dealing with autonomous governments for the transfer of more autonomy. This novel system of asymmetrical devolution has been described as a coconstitutionalism and has similarities to the devolution process adopted by the United Kingdom since 1997. The terrorist group, ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom), is attempting to achieve Basque independence through violent means, including bombings and killings of politicians and police. Although the Basque Autonomous government does not condone any kind of violence, their different approaches to the separatist movement are a source of tension between the federal and Basque governments. On 17 May 2005, all the parties in the Congress of Deputies, except the PP, passed the Central Government's motion of beginning peace talks with the ETA with no political concessions and only if it gives up all its weapons. PSOE, CiU, ERC, PNV, IU-ICV, CC and the mixed group -BNG, CHA, EA y NB- supported it with a total of 192 votes, while the 147 PP parliamentaris objected. On February 20th 2005, Spain became the first country to allow its people to vote on the European Union constitution that was signed in October 2004. The rules states that if any country rejects the constitution then the constitution will be declared void. The final result was very strongly in affirmation of the constitution, making Spain the first country to approve the constitution via referendum (Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia approved it before Spain, but they did not hold referenda).

Administrative divisions

Administratively, Spain is divided into 50 provinces, grouped into 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities with high degree of autonomy.

Autonomous communities

autonomous communities Main article: Autonomous communities of Spain Spain consists of 17 autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas) and 2 autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas; Ceuta and Melilla).
- Andalusia (Andalucía)
- Aragon (Aragón)
- Principality of Asturias (Principáu d'Asturies in Asturian/Principado de Asturias in Spanish)
- Balearic Islands (Illes Balears in Catalan / Islas Baleares in Spanish)
- Basque Country (Euskadi in Basque/País Vasco in Spanish)
- Canary Islands (Islas Canarias)
- Cantabria
- Castile-La Mancha (Castilla-La Mancha)
- Castile and Leon (Castilla y León in Spanish)
- Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan/Cataluña in Spanish/ Catalunha in Aranese)
- Extremadura
- Galicia (Galicia or Galiza in Galician)
- La Rioja
- Madrid
- Murcia
- Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque/Navarra in Spanish)
- Land of Valencia (Comunitat Valenciana in Valencian /Comunidad Valenciana in Spanish, as official denominations).

Provinces

Main article: Provinces of Spain The Spanish kingdom is also divided into 50 provinces (provincias). Autonomous communities group provinces (for instance, Extremadura is made of two provinces: Cáceres and Badajoz). The autonomous communities of Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarre, Murcia, and Madrid (the nation's capital) are each composed of a single province. Traditionally, provinces are usually subdivided into historic regions or comarcas (main article: Comarcas of Spain).

Places of sovereignty

There are also five enclaves (plazas de soberanía) on and off the African coast: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla are administered as autonomous cities, an intermediate status between cities and communities; the islands of the Islas Chafarinas, Peñón de Alhucemas, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera are under direct Spanish administration. The Canary islands, Ceuta and Melilla, although not officially historic communities, enjoy a special status.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Spain Geography of Spain Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tajo, 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, in the east there are alluvial plains with medium rivers like Segura, Júcar and Turia. Spain is bound to the east by Mediterranean Sea (containing the Balearic Islands), to the north by the Bay of Biscay and to its west by the Atlantic Ocean, where the Canary Islands off the African coast are found. Spain's climate can be divided in four areas:
- The Mediterranean: mostly temperate in the eastern and southern part of the country; rainy seasons are spring and autumn. Mild summers with pleasant temperatures. Hot records: Murcia 47.2 °C, Malaga 44.2 °C, Valencia 42.5 °C, Alicante 41.4 °C, Palma of Mallorca 40.6 °C, Barcelona 39.8 °C. Low records: Gerona -13.0 °C, Barcelona -10.0 °C, Valencia -7.2 °C, Murcia -6.0 °C, Alicante -4.6 °C, Malaga -3.8 °C.
- The interior: Very cold winters (frequent snow in the north) and hot summers. Hot records: Sevilla 47.0 °C, Cordoba 46.6 °C, Badajoz 45.0 °C, Albacete and Zaragoza 42.6 °C, Madrid 42.2 °C, Burgos 41.8 °C, Valladolid 40.2 °C. Low records: Albacete -24.0  °C, Burgos -22.0 °C, Salamanca -20.0 °C, Teruel -19.0 °C, Madrid -14.8 °C, Sevilla -5.5 °C.
- Northern Atlantic coast: precipitations mostly in winter, with mild summers (slightly cold). Hot records: Bilbao 42.0 °C, La Coruña 37.6 °C, Gijón 36.4 °C. Low records: Bilbao -8.6 °C, Oviedo -6.0 °C, Gijon and La Coruña -4.8 °C.
- The Canary Islands: subtropical weather, with mild temperatures (18 °C to 24 °C Celsius) throughout the year. Hot records: Santa Cruz de Tenerife 42.6 °C. Low records: Santa Cruz de Tenerife 8.1 °C.

Most populous metropolitan areas

Celsius Celsius # Madrid 5 603 285 # Barcelona 5 328 395 # Valencia 1 465 423 # Sevilla 1 294 081 # Málaga 1 019 292 For a more complete list, see List of cities in Spain