Europe

Spain
Last reviewed : 09 December 2011

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). Congress will be recalled on 13 December and the new Government will be appointed on 21 December 2011.

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: Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero;
Convergence and Union (CiU) leader: Artur Mas;
Basque National Party (PNV) leader: Iñigo Urkullu.

Head of State: King Juan Carlos I
Prime Minister: Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (PSOE) – (until December 2011)
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Trinidad Jimenez
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).