Spain and its travel guide

Spain, also known as the Kingdom of Spain, is a transcontinental sovereign country and a member of the European Union. It is constituted as a social and democratic state of law, whose form of government is the parliamentary monarchy. Its territory, with its capital in Madrid, is organized into seventeen autonomous communities, formed in turn by fifty provinces and two autonomous cities.

Spain is located both in the south of Western Europe and in the north of Africa. In Europe, it occupies most of the Iberian Peninsula, known as mainland Spain, and the Balearic Islands (in the western Mediterranean Sea). In Africa, there are the cities of Ceuta (in the Tingitana peninsula) and Melilla (in the cape of Tres Forcas), the Canary Islands (in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean) and other Mediterranean possessions called “squares of sovereignty.”

The municipality of Llivia, in the Pyrenees, constitutes an exclave completely surrounded by French territory. The set of territories is completed by a series of islands and islets off the peninsular coasts. It has an area of 505,370 km², making it the fourth largest country on the continent, after Russia, Ukraine and France, and with an average altitude of 650 meters above sea level, it is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe.

Its population exceeds 47 million inhabitants, although the population density is low. The peninsular territory shares land borders with France and Andorra to the north, with Portugal to the west and the British territory of Gibraltar to the south. In its African territories, it shares land and sea borders with Morocco. It shares with France sovereignty over the island of Pheasants at the mouth of the Bidasoa river and five Pyrenean facerías.

In accordance with the Constitution, and according to article 3.1, “Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. All Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it.” In 2020, it was the mother language of 82% of Spaniards. According to article 3.2, “the other Spanish languages will also be official in the respective Communities Autonomous in accordance with their Statutes.”

The Spanish or Castilian language, the second most spoken mother language in the world and with almost 600 million speakers, is one of the most important legacies of the cultural and historical heritage of Spain in the world.

Culturally belonging to Latin Europe and heir to a vast Greco-Roman influence, Spain is also home to the world’s fourth largest collection of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

It belongs to the list of developed countries. It enjoys the 6th highest life expectancy in the world and a high income—its GDP places the Spanish economy in the fourteenth position in the world.

Thanks to its unique characteristics, Spain is a great tourist power and stands as the second most visited country in the world (after France)—more than 83 million tourists in 2019—and the second country in the world in economic income from international tourism. It has a very high human development index (0.904), according to the 2020 report of the UN Development Program.