Europe

Spain
Last reviewed : 24 February 2012

Country information

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Map of Spain

Area: 504,782 km², of which 499,542 km² is land and 5,240 km² is water.
Population: 46.9 million (source INE Spanish National Statistics Office 2010)
Capital City: Madrid
Languages: Castilian Spanish, Catalan - 17%, Galician - 7%, Basque - 2%
Life Expectancy: 78 male, 84 female (source World Health Organisation)
People: Approximately 12% of the Spanish population are foreign nationals. Top foreign nationalities in Spain are Romanian (861k), Moroccan (777k), Ecuadorian, (380k), British (226k registered with the police and 1 million who spend at least part of the year in Spain) and Colombian (227k).
Religions: Roman Catholic - 94%; Protestant/other - 6% (source CIA World Factbook)
Currency: Euro
Government: Spanish elections were held on 20 November 2011 and won by the Popular Party (PP). The new Government was appointed on 22 December.

Spain is a democratic constitutional monarchy with a National Parliament (Cortes Generals), formed by the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, that is elected every 4 years. Spain is divided in to 17 regions – Andalusia, Aragón, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and León, Castile-La-Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Community of Madrid, Region of Murcia, Basque Country, Community of Valencia, Navarra and two autonomous cities – Ceuta and Meillla. These autonomous communities have varying powers, but each has its own parliament, government and administrative apparatus.
Major political parties:

Popular Party (PP) leader: Mariano Rajoy;
Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) leader: Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba;
Convergence and Union (CiU) leader: Artur Mas;
Basque National Party (PNV) leader: Iñigo Urkullu.

Head of State: King Juan Carlos I
Prime Minister: Mariano Rajoy (PP)
Minister of Foreign Affairs: José Manuel García-Margallo
Composition of current Parliament: Total seats: 350. Partido Popular (PP) centre right (186), PSOE, centre left (110), others (47).
Membership of international groupings/organisations: European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), United Nations (UN), Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Council of Europe (CoE).