Portal:Spain
The Spain Portal (Bienvenido al portal español)

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern and Western 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 (EU) member state. Spanning 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 mainland 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; 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. The Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula created the province of Hispania, which became deeply Romanised and later Christianised. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the peninsula was conquered by tribes from Central Europe, among them the Visigoths, who established the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early 8th century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, with Al-Andalus centred on Córdoba. The northern Christian kingdoms of Iberia launched the so-called Reconquista, gradually repelling and ultimately expelling Islamic rule from the peninsula, culminating with the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often seen as the de facto unification of Spain as a nation state. (Full article...)
Selected biography

Hernán Cortés (also known as Hernán(do) Cortés Pizarro, 1st Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca; born 1485–December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who initiated the conquest of the Aztec Empire on behalf of Charles V, king of Castile and Holy Roman Emperor, in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.[2]
Born in Medellín, Extremadura, in Castile, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue a livelihood in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda and, for a short time, became alcalde (mayor) of a small town. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, an expedition which he partly funded. His enmity with the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the latter recalling the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored. Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous peoples against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as interpreter; she would later bear Cortés a son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. Cortés returned to Spain in 1541 where he died peacefully but embittered.
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Did you know...
- ... that some pale stonecrops in Spain closely resemble Israeli specimens, while neighboring plants in Spain can look vastly different?
- ... that the anti-Francoist guerrilla Marcelino Massana pranked the Civil Guard captain who was trying to kill him by paying for his coffee?
- ... that Bernardo Zapater, a founding member of Spain's oldest private scientific society, is the namesake of a "totally underrated" flower?
- ... that Spanish footballer Emilia Ibáñez scored 40 league goals in the 1985–86 season, yet was not the top goalscorer in the league?
- ... that Pedro Durruti was executed by firing squad, but the Spanish State officially recorded his cause of death as cardiac arrest?
- ... that flying ace Ángel Salas Larrazábal was a co-leader of Spain for two days between the death of Francisco Franco and the ascension of King Juan Carlos I?
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In the news
- 4 December 2025 – Eurovision Song Contest 2026
- Ireland, Slovenia, Spain, and the Netherlands announce they will boycott next year's Eurovision Song Contest after the European Broadcasting Union confirmed Israel's participation. (BBC News)
- 4 December 2025 – Human trafficking in Spain
- Spanish police arrest eleven people linked to a criminal network that smuggled over 300 workers into the country on tourist visas, mostly from Nepal, and placed them on farms. (AP)
- 1 December 2025 –
- Spain deploys 400 Mossos d'Esquadra and 117 Military Emergencies Unit members to contain the spread of the African swine fever virus in Catalonia after two dead wild boars tested positive for the virus. (Reuters)
- 1 December 2025 – China–Spain relations
- China permits Spain to resume pork exports from regions unaffected by African swine fever following a trade prohibition imposed on November 28. (Reuters)
- 1 December 2025 –
- Spain deploys 400 Mossos d'Esquadra and 117 Military Emergencies Unit members to contain the spread of the African swine fever virus in Catalonia after two dead wild boars tested positive for the virus. (Reuters)
- 30 November 2025 –
- Thousands of supporters of Spain's conservative and Christian democratic opposition People's Party gather in Madrid and calls for prime minister Pedro Sánchez to resign amid a corruption scandal involving ruling PSOE. (AP)
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WikiProject Basque • WikiProject Catalan-speaking Countries • WikiProject Galicia • Spanish Translation of the Week
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- ^ "Atlantic hurricane best track (HURDAT version 2)" (Database). United States National Hurricane Center. April 4, 2025.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- Landsea, Chris (April 2022). "The revised Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2) - Chris Landsea – April 2022" (PDF). Hurricane Research Division – NOAA/AOML. Miami: Hurricane Research Division – via Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
- ^ Hernan Cortés (1485 - 1547)




















































