Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.
A satellite view of Galicia
Bronze Age gold helmet from Leiro, Rianxo
Palloza houses in eastern Galicia, an evolved form of the Iron Age local roundhouses
Castro de Baroña, an Iron Age fortified settlement
Galician, also known as Galego, is a Western Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it has official status along with Spanish. The language is also spoken in some border zones of the neighbouring Spanish regions of Asturias and Castile and León, as well as by Galician migrant communities in the rest of Spain, in Latin America including Puerto Rico, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.
Vindel's parchment, containing music and lyrics of several 13th-century cantigas by Martin Codax
One of the oldest legal charters written in Galician, the constitutional charter of the Bo Burgo (Good Burg) of Castro Caldelas, 1228
Mediaeval Galician inscription in a 14th-century house, in Noia: "ESTAS CASAS MANDOU FAZER VASCO DA COSTA, ERA DE MCCCLXXVII" These houses were ordered by Vasco da Costa, era 1377 (1339 AD)
Cantigas de Santa Maria, 13th century