Spain

Proper noun

Spain

1. Country in Europe. Member state of the European Union. Official name: Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España).

Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ ( listen) spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.

Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 km², it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France.

Because of its location, the territory of Spain was subject to many external influences since prehistoric times and through to its dawn as a country. Conversely, it has been an important source of influence to other regions, chiefly during the Modern Era, when it became a global empire that has left a legacy of over 400 million Spanish speakers today, making it 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 developed country with the ninth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and very high living standards (15th highest Human Development Index), including the tenth-highest quality of life index rating in the world, as of 2005. It is a member of the United Nations, European Union, NATO, OECD, and WTO.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España), is a member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.

Sourced

• En dos edades vivimos los propios y los ajenos: la de plata los estraños, y la de cobre los nuestros.
  • We live in different ages, non-Spaniards and ourselves: they in the age of silver, we in the age of brass.
  • Lope de Vega La Dorotea Act I, sc. iv. Translation from Alan S. Trueblood and Edwin Honig (ed. and trans.) La Dorotea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1985) p. 23.

• In Mexico the gods ruled, the priests interpreted and interposed, and the people obeyed. In Spain, the priests ruled, the king interpreted and interposed, and the gods obeyed. A nuance in an ideological difference is a wide chasm.
  • Richard Condon A Talent for Loving (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961) p. 53.

• The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
  • Francis Bacon, "Of Seeming Wise", in Essays (1625); Brian Vickers (ed.) The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 389.

• The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, speaking on April 23, 1832; Henry Nelson Coleridge (ed.) Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1905) p. 171.

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Mon Aug 23 11:48:41 2010