1.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
2.
Autonomous communities of Spain
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Spain is not a federation, but a highly decentralized unitary state. Some scholars have referred to the system as a federal system in all. There are 17 autonomous communities and two cities that are collectively known as autonomies. The two autonomous cities have the right to become autonomous communities, but neither has yet used this right and this unique framework of territorial administration is known as the State of Autonomies. The autonomous communities are governed according to the constitution and their own organic laws known as Statutes of Autonomy, since devolution was intended to be asymmetrical in nature, the scope of competences vary for each community, but all have the same parliamentary structure. Spain is a country made up of different regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages. While the entire Spanish territory was united under one crown by the 16th century, the constituent territories—be it crowns, kingdoms, principalities or dominions—retained much of their former institutional existence, including limited legislative, judicial or fiscal autonomy. These territories also exhibited a variety of customs, laws. From the 18th century onwards, the Bourbon kings and the government tried to establish a more centralized regime, leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment advocated for the building of a Spanish nation beyond the internal territorial boundaries. This culminated in 1833, when Spain was divided into 49 provinces and these were the Basque Country and Catalonia. This gave rise to peripheral nationalisms along with Spanish nationalism, therefore, economic and social changes that had produced a national cultural unification in France had the opposite effect in Spain. In a response to Catalan demands, limited autonomy was granted to Catalonia in 1913 and it was granted again in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic, when the Generalitat, Catalonias mediaeval institution of government, was restored. During General Francos dictatorial regime, centralism was most forcefully enforced as a way of preserving the unity of the Spanish nation, peripheral nationalism, along with communism and atheism were regarded by his regime as the main threats. When Franco died in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy, the then Prime Minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, met with Josep Tarradellas, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile. An agreement was made so that the Generalitat would be restored and limited competencies would be transferred while the constitution was still being written. In the end, the constitution, published and ratified in 1979, found a balance in recognizing the existence of nationalities and regions in Spain, within the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation. The starting point in the organization of Spain was the second article of the constitution. In order to exercise this right, the established a open process whereby the nationalities
3.
Community of Madrid
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The Community of Madrid is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and its capital is the city of Madrid, which is also the capital of the country. The Community of Madrid is bounded to the south and east by Castile–La Mancha and to the north and west by Castile and it was formally created in 1983, based on the limits of the province of Madrid, until then conventionally included in the historical region of New Castile. The Community of Madrid is the third most populous in Spain with 6,369,167 inhabitants mostly concentrated in the area of Madrid. It is also the most densely populated autonomous community, Madrids economy is of roughly equal size to Catalonias, which remains Spains largest. Madrid thus has the highest GDP per capita in the country, some notable discoveries of the region the bell-shaped vase of Ciempozuelos. During the Roman Empire, the region was part of the Citerior Tarraconese province, except for the south-west portion of it and it was crossed by two important Roman roads, the via xxiv-xxix (joining Astorga to laminium and via xxv, and contained some important conurbations. The city of Complutum became an important metropolis, whereas Titulcia, during the period of the Visigothic Kingdom, the region lost its importance. The population was scattered amongst several small towns, Alcalá de Henares was designated the bishopric seat in the 5th century by orders of Asturio, archbishop of Toledo, but this event was not enough to bring back the lost splendor of the city. The centre of the peninsula was one of the regions of the Al-Andalus until the 11th century when it became important. The Muslim governors created a system of fortresses and towers all across the region with which they tried to stop the advance of the Christian kingdoms of the north. The fortress of Mayrit was built somewhere between 860 and 880 AD, as a walled precinct where a military and religious community lived, and it soon became the most strategic fortress in defense of the city of Toledo above the fortresses of Talamanca de Jarama and Qal-at-Abd-Al-Salam. In 1083, king Alfonso VI of Castile conquered the city of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares fell in 1118 in a new period of Castilian annexation. The feudal and ecclesiastical lords came into constant conflict with the different councils that had granted the authority to repopulate. Specifically, Alcalá de Henares was under the hands of the archbishopric of Toledo, Castilian monarchs showed a predilection for the center of the peninsula, with abundant forests and game. El Pardo was a region visited frequently by kings since the time of Henry III, the Catholic Monarchs started the construction of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. In the 16th century, San Lorenzo de El Escorial was built, besides its growing political importance, it also became a cultural center with the foundation of the University of Alcalá de Henares in 1508. In 1561, King Philip II made Madrid the capital of the empire, the surrounding territories became economically subordinated to the town itself, even beyond the present day limits of the Community of Madrid
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Madrid metropolitan area
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The Madrid Metropolitan Area comprises the city of Madrid and 20 surrounding municipalities. It has a population of 6,321,398 people and it is the largest metropolitan area in Spain, the 4th largest in the European Union and the 54th largest in the world. The GDP of the area of Madrid was estimated to be 189 billion euros in 2009. The GDP per capita was 37,758 euros in the area while it reached 30,453 euros for the Madrid region
5.
People's Party (Spain)
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The Peoples Party is a conservative and Christian democratic political party in Spain. It is one of the four parties of modern Spanish politics. The new party combined the conservative AP with several small Christian democratic, in 2002, Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of Founding Chairman. The PP was until November 2011 the largest opposition party in the Congress of Deputies, with 153 out of 350 deputies, and its youth organization is New Generations of the Peoples Party of Spain. In the elections of November 2011, the PP won a majority, the PP is a member of the center-right European Peoples Party, and in the European Parliament its 16 MEPs sit in the EPP Group. The PP is also a member of the Centrist Democrat International, the PP was also one of the founding organizations of the Budapest-based Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. The party has its roots in the Peoples Alliance founded on 9 October 1976 by former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga, although Fraga was a member of the reformist faction of the Franco regime, he supported an extremely gradual transition to democracy. However, he underestimated the publics distaste for Francoism. Additionally, while he attempted to convey a reformist image, the number of former Francoists in the party led the public to perceive it as both reactionary and authoritarian. In the June 1977 general election, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote, in the months following the 1977 elections, dissent erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fragas wing won the struggle, prompting most of the disenchanted reactionaries to leave the party, the AP then joined with other moderate conservatives to form the Democratic Coalition. In the March 1979 general election, however, the CD received 6.1 percent of the vote, at the APs Second Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders re-assessed their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP. In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership and he was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right. It became the opposition party to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. Whereas the APs parliamentary representation had dropped to 9 seats in 1979, the increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the APs emphasis on law, subsequent political developments belied the partys aspirations to continue increasing its base of support
6.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above
7.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
Spain
Madrid
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