1.
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
2.
Madrid
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Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo. With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
3.
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
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Spanish Golden Age
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The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is considered to have lasted longer than an actual century. Politically, it no later than 1659, with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, died in 1681, the Habsburgs, both in Spain and Austria, were great patrons of art in their countries. El Escorial, the royal monastery built by King Philip II, invited the attention of some of Europes greatest architects. El Greco, another respected artist from the period, infused Spanish art with the styles of the Italian renaissance, some of Spains greatest music is regarded as having been written in the period. Spanish literature blossomed as well, most famously demonstrated in the work of Miguel de Cervantes, Spains most prolific playwright, Lope de Vega, wrote possibly as many as one thousand plays during his lifetime, of which over four hundred survive to the present day. Spain, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, had seen few great artists come to its shores, Luis de Morales, one of the leading exponents of Spanish mannerist painting, retained a distinctly Spanish style in his work, reminiscent of medieval art. Spanish rule of Naples was important for making connections between Italian and Spanish art, with many Spanish administrators bringing Italian works back to Spain. Known for his impact in bringing the Italian Renaissance to Spain, El Greco was not Spanish. He studied the great Italian masters of his time - Titian, Tintoretto, according to legend, he asserted that he would paint a mural that would be as good as one of Michelangelos, if one of the Italian artists murals was demolished first. El Greco quickly fell out of favor in Italy, but soon found a new home in the city of Toledo and he was influential in creating a style based on impressions and emotion, featuring elongated fingers and vibrant color and brushwork. Uniquely, his works featured faces that captured expressions of sombre attitudes and his paintings of the city of Toledo became models for a new European tradition in landscapes, and influenced the work of later Dutch masters. Spain at this time was an environment for the Venetian-trained painter. Art was flourishing in the empire and Toledo was a place to get commissions. He was born on June 6,1599, in Seville, both parents were from the minor nobility. He was the oldest of six children, diego Velázquez is widely regarded as one of Spains most important and influential artists. He was a painter for King Philip IV and found increasingly high demand for his portraits from statesmen, aristocrats
6.
Lope de Vega
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Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright, poet, novelist and marine. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century of Baroque literature, nicknamed The Phoenix of Wits and Prodigy of Nature by Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega renewed the Spanish theatre at a time when it was starting to become a mass cultural phenomenon. He defined its key characteristics, and along with Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina, because of the insight, depth and ease of his plays, he is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in Western literature, his plays still being produced worldwide. He was also one of the best lyric poets in the Spanish language, some 3,000 sonnets,3 novels,4 novellas,9 epic poems, and about 500 plays are attributed to him. Although he has criticised for putting quantity ahead of quality. Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was born in Madrid to a family of undistinguished origins and his father, Félix de Vega, was an embroiderer. Little is known of his mother, Francisca Fernández Flórez and he later added the distinguished name of Carpio from one of his in-laws. After a brief stay in Valladolid, his father moved to Madrid in 1561, however, Lope de Vega would later affirm that his father arrived in Madrid through a love affair from which his future mother was to rescue him. Thus the writer became the fruit of reconciliation and owed his existence to the same jealousies he would later analyze so much in his dramatic works. The first indications of young Lopes genius became apparent in his earliest years and his friend and biographer Pérez de Montalbán stated that at the age of five he was already reading Spanish and Latin, and by his tenth birthday he was translating Latin verse. His great talent bore him to the school of poet and musician Vicente Espinel in Madrid, in his fourteenth year he continued his studies in the Colegio Imperial, a Jesuit school in Madrid, from which he absconded to take part in a military expedition in Portugal. Following that escapade, he had the fortune of being taken into the protection of the Bishop of Ávila. Following graduation Lope had planned to follow in his patrons footsteps and join the priesthood, thus he failed to attain a bachelors degree and made what living he could as a secretary to aristocrats or by writing plays. Following this he returned to Madrid and began his career as a playwright in earnest and he also began a love affair with Elena Osorio, who was separated from her husband, actor Cristóbal Calderón, and was the daughter of a leading theater director. He went into exile undaunted, taking him the 16-year-old Isabel de Alderete y Urbina, known in his poems by the anagram Belisa. The two married under pressure from her family on 10 May 1588. Just a few later, on the 29th of May, Lope signed up for another tour of duty with the Spanish Navy, this was the summer of 1588. It is likely that his enlistment was the condition required by Isabels family, eager to be rid of such an ill presentable son-in-law
7.
Royal Spanish Academy
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The Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE, is the official royal institution responsible for overseeing the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies, the proposed language guidelines are shown in a number of works. The priorities are the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, edited periodically twenty-three times since 1780, the Academy has a formal procedure for admitting words to its publications. The headquarters, opened in 1894, is located at Calle Felipe IV,4, in the ward of Jerónimos, the Center for the Studies of the Royal Spanish Academy, opened in 2007, is located at Calle Serrano 187–189. King Philip V approved its constitution on 3 October 1714, placing it under the Crowns protection, the RAE began establishing rules for the orthography of Spanish beginning in 1741 with the first edition of the Ortographía. The proposals of the Academy became the norm in Spain by royal decree in 1844. The current rules and practical recommendations are presented in the latest edition of the Ortografía. In 1994, the RAE ruled that the Spanish consonants CH and LL would hence be alphabetized under C and under L, respectively, the Números are elected for life by the other academicians. Each academician holds a seat labeled with a letter from the Spanish alphabet, upper-, joint publications of the RAE and the Association of Spanish Language Academies Diccionario de la lengua española. The first edition is in public domain, the Diccionario esencial de la lengua española was published in 2006 as a shortened work to span between the 22nd and 23rd editions. The edition of 1999 was the first spelling book to cover the whole Hispanic world, the first edition is in public domain. Nueva gramática de la lengua española, the latest edition is the first grammar to cover the whole Hispanic world, replacing the prior Gramática de la lengua española and the Esbozo de una Nueva gramática de la lengua española. The first edition is in public domain, the Gramática básica is a 250-page pocket reference intended for school use, to be published in late 2010. The RAE has also published two works by individual editors, Gramática de la lengua española and Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Resolves doubts related to the use of the Spanish language, replaces the Diccionario escolar de la RAE. Diccionario práctico del estudiante is a version for Latin America
8.
National monuments of Spain
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The current legislation regarding historical monuments in Spain dates from 1985. However, Monumentos nacionales were first designated in the nineteenth century and it was originally a fairly broad category for national heritage sites protecting, for example, the Alhambra. The overarching category for Spanish heritage sites is now Bien de Interés Cultural, now there are some 13,000 monuments registered by the Ministry of Culture within the wider category of Bien de Interés Cultural. As well as monuments, the category of Bien de Interés Cultural includes the following sub-categories of non-movable heritage, Conjunto histórico, jardín histórico, historic garden Sitio histórico, which includes cultural landscapes Zona arqueológica, archaeological zone Some Spanish sites are protected under more than one sub-category. For example, the Alhambra and Generalife receive protection as monument, garden, a few of numerous articles at Wikipedia covering Spanish monuments are, Numantia Castle of La Mota Cuéllar Castle San Sebastian Church, Madrid San Cayetano Church, Madrid Bien de Interés Cultural
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