Jump to content

Portal:Spain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from P:SPAIN)

The Spain Portal (Bienvenido al portal español)

The coat of arms of Spain

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southwestern Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid, and other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Málaga, Murcia and Palma de Mallorca.

In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Celts, Iberians, and other pre-Roman peoples. With the Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the province of Hispania was established. Following the Christianization of Hispania, the fall of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the inward migration of tribes from Central Europe, including the Visigoths, who formed the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centred on Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them Asturias, León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal; made an intermittent southward military expansion and repopulation, known as the Reconquista, repelling Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often considered the de facto unification of Spain as a nation-state. (Full article...)

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

Selected biography

Queen Sofia
Queen Sofia

Queen Sofía of Spain (Spanish: Su Majestad la Reina Sofía de España, Greek: Βασίλισσα Σοφία της Ισπανίας;) born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark on November 2, 1938; full name Sophía Margaríta Viktoría Frederíki), is the Queen Consort of King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark was born in Athens, Greece on November 2, 1938, the eldest child of the King Paul I of the Hellenes (1901-1964) and his wife, Queen Frederika (1917-1981), a former princess of Hanover. Queen Sofia is a member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty. Her brother is Constantine II of Greece and her sister Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark. However, since the restoration of democracy, the royal titles are not recognized in Greece, where the former royal family is held in low regard by most Greeks.

Princess Sophia spent her childhood in Egypt and South Africa during her family's exile from Greece during World War II. They returned to Greece in 1946. She finished her education at the prestigious Schloss Salem boarding school in Southern Germany, and then studied pediatrics, music, and archeology in Athens. On May 14, 1962 Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark married Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, the future king, whom she met on a cruise of the Greek Islands in 1954. In doing so, she relinquished her rights to the throne of Greece and converted to Roman Catholicism from Greek Orthodoxy. Further, the Latin transliteration of her Greek name Σοφία was changed from Sophia to the Spanish variant Sofía, which nonetheless is pronounced

Selected picture

Did you know...

Good article – show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

General images

The following are images from various Spain-related articles on Wikipedia.

In the news

22 December 2024 –
Residents of Logroño, La Rioja, Spain, win the world's biggest lottery, the Spanish Christmas Lottery's El Gordo 2.7 billion prize. (DW)

18 December 2024 – 2024 FIFA Intercontinental Cup
In association football, Real Madrid wins the inaugural FIFA Intercontinental Cup after defeating Pachuca 3–0 in the final in Lusail, Qatar. Vinícius Júnior is awarded the Golden Ball. (The Guardian)

More current events...

Spain topics

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

Things you can do

Things you can do
Things you can do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals