Spanish people
Encyclopedia
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history.
The official language of Spain is Spanish
(also known as Castilian
), a standard language
based on the mediaeval dialect of the Castilian
of north-central Spain. There are several robust regional languages; with the exception of Basque
, the languages native to Spain
are Romance languages
.
There are substantial populations with ancestors who emigrated from Spain, the result of Spanish colonialism
and emigration
, in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America
.
are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC
and the 3rd millennium BC
, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast.
Celts settled in Spain during the Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, which had cultural contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians
. In addition, a group known as the Tartessians
and later Turdetani
ans inhabited southwestern Spain and who are believed to have developed a separate civilization of Phoenicia
n influence. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks
, and Carthaginians
successively founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries. The Second Punic War
between the Carthaginians and Romans
was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal
.
The Roman Republic
conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC transformed most of the region into a series of Latin
-speaking provinces. As a result of Roman colonization, the majority of local languages, with the exception of Basque
, stem from the Vulgar Latin
that was spoken in Hispania
(Roman Iberia), which evolved into the modern languages of the Iberian Peninsula, including Castilian, which became the main lingua franca of Spain, and is now known in most countries as Spanish. Hispania emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire
and produced notable historical figures such as Trajan
, Hadrian
, Seneca
and Quintilian
.
The Germanic
Vandals
and Suebi
, with part of the Iranic
Alans
under King Respendial
, arrived en masse in the peninsula in 409 AD. It is widely believed that the Vandals may have given their name to the region of Andalusia
formerly known as Baetica, which according to one of several theories of its etymology
which would be the source of Al-Andalus
, the Arabic name of the Iberian peninsula. Part of the Vandals with the remaining Alans, now under Geiseric in personal union
removed themselves to North Africa after a few conflicts with another Germanic tribe, the Visigoths, who established in Toulouse
supported Roman campaigns against the Vandals and Alans in 415–19 AD and became the dominant power in Iberia for three centuries. The Visigoths were highly romanized
in the eastern Empire and already Christians, so their integration within the late Iberian-Roman culture was full; they accepted the laws and structures of the late Roman World with little change, more than any other successor barbarian state in the West after the Ostrogoths, and all the more so after abandoning the Arian cult
. The other Germanic tribe remaining in the peninsula, the Suebi
(including the Buri
), became established according to sources as federates of the Roman Empire in the old North western Roman province of Gallaecia
, but in fact largely independent and predatory on neighboring provinces to stretch their political control over ever-larger portions of the southwest after the Vandals and Alans left, creating a totally independent Suebic Kingdom
. After being checked and reduced in 456 AD by the Visigoths moving to settle in the peninsula, it survived until 585 AD, when it was annihilated as an independent political unit by the Visigoths, after involvement in the internal affairs of the kingdom, supporting Catholic rebellions and sedition within the Royal family
. The Suebi
became the first Germanic kingdom to convert officially to Roman Catholicism in 447 AD. under king Rechiar
.
After two centuries of domination by the Visigothic Kingdom
, the Iberian Peninsula
was invaded by Muslim armies
in 711. These armies consisted mainly of Berber
s with prominent Arab tribal
leaders amongst them and were commonly known as the Moors
. They conquered nearly all of the peninsula except for the Christian Kingdom of Asturias
in the far north. Muslim controlled areas of Iberia became known as Al-Andalus
. The duration of Muslim rule varied greatly, from as little as twenty two years in the Northwest of the peninsula to 781 years in the far south. For the first three centuries of Muslim rule, the peninsula's Christian kingdoms in the north were very much on the defensive, but eventually after the break-up of Muslim unity in the 11th century, the Muslims were driven south in a long process that historians term the Reconquista
, which ended with their final capitulation in 1492.
In the first two centuries of Al-Andalus, Muslim
s formed a ruling minority. Another minority, present since Roman times, were the Jews
. In the 10th century a massive conversion of the population from Christianity
to Islam
took place, so that muladi
es comprised the majority of the population by the century's end. However, the process began to reverse as the Christian reconquest gathered pace. Ultimately, Jews and Muslims either converted to Catholicism
or were expelled from Spain in 1492 and 1502, following the completion of the Reconquista. Between 1609 and 1614, approximately 300,000 Morisco
s—new Christians forcibly converted from Islam who continued to speak, write, and dress like Muslims—were expelled
.
In 842, another group of Arabian tribes, Amazigh or Berber
, invaded the peninsula. They attacked Cádiz
in 844. These Amazigah were hispanised in all Christian kingdoms, while they kept their ethnic identity and culture in Al-Andalus.
The union of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and the conquest of Granada
led to the formation of the Spanish state as we know it today and thus to the development of Spanish identity in the form of one people. The Canary Islands
had an indigenous population called the Guanches
, whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians and linguists.
and Peru
these two regions became the principal destinations of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. In the period 1850–1950, 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas, particularly Argentina
, Uruguay
, Mexico
, Brazil
, Chile
, Venezuela
, and Cuba
. From 1840 to 1890, as many as 40,000 Canary Islanders emigrated to Venezuela
. 94,000 Spaniards chose to go to Algeria
in the last years of the 19th century, and 250,000 Spaniards lived in Morocco
at the beginning of the 20th century.
By the end of the Spanish Civil War
, some 500,000 Spanish Republican refugee
s had crossed
the border into France. From 1961 to 1974, at the height of the guest worker
in Western Europe, about 100,000 Spaniards emigrated each year.
, Britain
, Ireland
, and its Iberian neighbour, Portugal
. As a western country, Spain shares strong cultural relationships with the rest of the Western world
that extends back to the common medieval and Roman inheritances; but it has especially strong cultural relations with Latin America and the countries of Latin Europe
, especially Italy
, Portugal, and France.
The genetic signatures of people in Spain and Portugal provide new and explicit evidence of the mass conversions of Sephardi Jews
and Muslim
s to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control. Geneticists have recently found that 20% of the population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11% percent have DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors.
, the Catalans
, Valencians
and Balearics (who speak Catalan
, a distinct Romance language in eastern Spain), the Basques
(who live in the Basque country
and speak Basque
, a non-Indo-European language), and the Galicians
(who speak Galician
, a descendant of old Galician-Portuguese
).
Respect to the existing cultural pluralism
is important to many Spaniards. In many regions there exist strong regional identities such as Asturias
, Aragon
, the Canary Islands
, León
, and Andalusia
, while in others (like Catalonia
, Basque Country
or Galicia) there are stronger national sentiments
.
Regional ethnic groups
Spain is home to one of the largest communities of Romani people (commonly known by the English exonym "gypsies", Spanish: gitanos). The Spanish Roma, which belong to the Iberian Kale subgroup (calé), are a formerly-nomadic community, which spread across Western Asia, North Africa, and Europe, first reaching Spain in the 15th century.
Spanish Roma, for a number of historical and cultural reasons are not considered a separate or "foreign" population in Spain, but a distinct ethnicity constituting one of the populations native to Spain. Roma play an important role in particularly Andalusian folklore, music, and culture.
There are no official statistics on the Roma population, but estimates fluctuate between 600,000 and 1,500,000, with the Spanish government's estimating a number between 650,000 and 700,000. Most Spanish Roma live in the autonomous community of Andalusia, where they have traditionally enjoyed a higher degree of integration than in the rest of the country. A number of Spanish Kale also live in Southern France, especially in the region of Perpignan
.
) and immigrants now make up about 10% of the population. Since 2000, Spain has absorbed more than 3 million immigrants, with thousands more arriving each year. Immigrant population now tops over 4.5 million. They come mainly from Europe
, Latin America
, China
, the Philippines
, North Africa
, and West Africa
.
Languages spoken in Spain include Spanish
(castellano or español) (74%), Catalan
(català, called valencià
in the Valencian Community
) (17%), Galician
(galego) (7%), and Basque
(euskara) (2%). Other languages are Asturian
(asturianu), Aranese Gascon
(aranés), Aragonese
(aragonés), and Leonese
, each with their own various dialects. Spanish is the official state language, although the other languages are co-official in a number of autonomous communities.
Peninsular Spanish is largely considered to be divided into two main dialects: Castilian Spanish (spoken in the northern half of the country) and Andalusian Spanish (spoken mainly in Andalusia). However, a large part of Spain, including Madrid, Extremadura, Murcia, and Castile-La Mancha, speak local dialects known as "transitional dialects" between Andalusian and Castilian Spanish. The Canary Islands also have a distinct dialect of Castilian Spanish which is very close to Caribbean Spanish
. Linguistically, the Spanish language is a Romance language
and is one of the aspects (including laws and general "ways of life") that causes Spaniards to be labelled a Latin people
. The strong Arabic influence on the language
(nearly 4,000 words are of Arabic origin, many nouns and few verbs) and the independent evolution of the language itself through history, most notably the Basque influence at the formative stage of Castilian Romance, partially explain its difference from other Romance languages. The Basque language left a strong imprint on Spanish both linguistically and phonetically. Other changes in Spanish have come from borrowings from English and French, although English influence is stronger in Latin America than in Spain.
The number of speakers of Spanish
as a mother tongue is roughly 35.6 million, while the vast majority of other groups in Spain such as the Galicians
, Catalans
, and Basques
also speak Spanish as a first or second language, which boosts the number of Spanish speakers to the overwhelming majority of Spain's population of 46 million.
Spanish was exported to the Americas due to over three centuries of Spanish colonial rule starting with the arrival of Christopher Columbus
to Santo Domingo
in 1492. Spanish is spoken natively by over 400 million people and spans across most countries of the Americas; from the Southwestern United States in North America down to Tierra del Fuego
, the southernmost region of South America in Chile
and Argentina
. A variety of the language, known as Judaeo-Spanish
or Ladino (or Haketia
in Morocco), is still spoken by descendants of Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) who fled Spain following a decree of expulsion of Moors and Jews
in 1492. Also, a Spanish creole language
known as Chabacano
, which developed by the mixing of Spanish and native Tagalog
and Cebuano language
s during Spain's rule of the country through Mexico
from 1565 to 1898, is spoken in the Philippines
(by fewer than 1 million people).
Anti-Franco political dissidents from Spain who moved to Russia
during World War II speak a mix of Russian and Spanish, while some speak Catalan and Basque. In Montreal
(Quebec
, Canada
), many Spanish-speaking immigrants relocated in the city adapted a mixed language Franspanol, while they're able to speak French and in addition, English. The Spanish language is also found in small communities of Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Outside of Europe, Latin America has the largest population of people with ancestors from Spain. These include people of full
or partial
Spanish ancestry.
Other regions of the world with small Spanish descended populations include the Philippines
and Marianas Islands.
The listings above shows the ten countries with know collected data on people with presumed ancestors from Spain, although the definitions of each of these are somewhat different and the numbers cannot really be compared. Spanish Chilean
of Chile and Spanish Uruguayan of Uruguay could be included by percentage (each at above 40%) instead of numeral size.
The official language of Spain is Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
(also known as Castilian
Names given to the Spanish language
There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish and Castilian . Spanish speakers from different countries or backgrounds can show a preference for one term or the other, or use them indiscriminately, but political issues or common usage might lead speakers to prefer one term over the...
), a standard language
Standard Spanish
Standard Spanish or neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety, or lect, that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. Standard Spanish is not merely Spanish adjusted to fit in prescriptive molds dictated by a linguistic overseeing authority, but also a form of language that...
based on the mediaeval dialect of the Castilian
Castilian people
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
of north-central Spain. There are several robust regional languages; with the exception of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, the languages native to Spain
Languages of Spain
The languages of Spain are the languages spoken or once spoken in Spain. Romance languages are the most widely spoken in Spain, of which Spanish is the country's official language...
are Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
.
There are substantial populations with ancestors who emigrated from Spain, the result of Spanish colonialism
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
and emigration
Spanish diaspora
The Spanish diaspora consists of Spanish people and their descendants who emigrated from Spain. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba and other parts of Latin America, and to a lesser extent, the United States, Canada and continental Europe.-Origins : ...
, in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
Early populations
The earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Neolithic peoples who may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000–40,000 years ago. In more recent times the IberiansIberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC
4th millennium BC
The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marked the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established and grew to prominence. Agriculture spread widely across Eurasia...
and the 3rd millennium BC
3rd millennium BC
The 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast.
Celts settled in Spain during the Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, which had cultural contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians
Celtiberians
The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group used the Celtic Celtiberian language.Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain...
. In addition, a group known as the Tartessians
Tartessos
Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula , at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus, who describes it as...
and later Turdetani
Turdetani
The Turdetani were ancient people of the Iberian peninsula , living in the valley of the Guadalquivir in what was to become the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica...
ans inhabited southwestern Spain and who are believed to have developed a separate civilization of Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n influence. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, and Carthaginians
Carthaginian Republic
Ancient Carthage was a civilization centered on the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, located in North Africa on the Gulf of Tunis, outside what is now Tunis, Tunisia. It was founded in 814 BC...
successively founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries. The Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...
between the Carthaginians and Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
.
The Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC transformed most of the region into a series of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
-speaking provinces. As a result of Roman colonization, the majority of local languages, with the exception of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, stem from the Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
that was spoken in Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
(Roman Iberia), which evolved into the modern languages of the Iberian Peninsula, including Castilian, which became the main lingua franca of Spain, and is now known in most countries as Spanish. Hispania emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and produced notable historical figures such as Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
, Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
, Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
and Quintilian
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...
.
The Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
Vandals
Vandals
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....
and Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
, with part of the Iranic
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
under King Respendial
Respendial
Respendial or Respindal was king of a group of Alans in western Europe in the early 5th century CE.Respendial was king of one two groups of Alans which crossed the Rhine into the Roman Empire in 407 CE...
, arrived en masse in the peninsula in 409 AD. It is widely believed that the Vandals may have given their name to the region of Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
formerly known as Baetica, which according to one of several theories of its etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
which would be the source of Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
, the Arabic name of the Iberian peninsula. Part of the Vandals with the remaining Alans, now under Geiseric in personal union
Personal union
A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...
removed themselves to North Africa after a few conflicts with another Germanic tribe, the Visigoths, who established in Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
supported Roman campaigns against the Vandals and Alans in 415–19 AD and became the dominant power in Iberia for three centuries. The Visigoths were highly romanized
Romanization (cultural)
Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire...
in the eastern Empire and already Christians, so their integration within the late Iberian-Roman culture was full; they accepted the laws and structures of the late Roman World with little change, more than any other successor barbarian state in the West after the Ostrogoths, and all the more so after abandoning the Arian cult
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
. The other Germanic tribe remaining in the peninsula, the Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
(including the Buri
Buri (Germanic tribe)
The Buri were a Germanic tribe mentioned in the Germania of Tacitus, where they initially "close the back" of the Marcomanni and Quadi of Bohemia and Moravia. It is said that their speech and customs were like those of the Suebi...
), became established according to sources as federates of the Roman Empire in the old North western Roman province of Gallaecia
Gallaecia
Gallaecia or Callaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province and an early Mediaeval kingdom that comprised a territory in the north-west of Hispania...
, but in fact largely independent and predatory on neighboring provinces to stretch their political control over ever-larger portions of the southwest after the Vandals and Alans left, creating a totally independent Suebic Kingdom
Suebic Kingdom of Galicia
The Suebic Kingdom of Galicia was the first independent barbarian Christian kingdom of Western Europe and the first to separate from the Roman Empire, as well as the first one to mint coins. Based in Gallaecia, it was established in 410 and lasted as independent state until 584, after a century of...
. After being checked and reduced in 456 AD by the Visigoths moving to settle in the peninsula, it survived until 585 AD, when it was annihilated as an independent political unit by the Visigoths, after involvement in the internal affairs of the kingdom, supporting Catholic rebellions and sedition within the Royal family
Hermenegild
Saint Hermenegild or Ermengild , was the son of king Leovigild of Visigothic Spain. He fell out with his father in 579, then revolted the following year. During his rebellion, he converted from Arian Christianity to Roman Catholicism. Hermenegild was defeated in 584, and exiled...
. The Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
became the first Germanic kingdom to convert officially to Roman Catholicism in 447 AD. under king Rechiar
Rechiar
Rechiar or Rechiarius was the Suevic King of Galicia from 448 until his death. He was the first Catholic Germanic king in Europe and one of the most innovative and belligerent of the Suevi monarchs...
.
Middle Ages
Visigothic Kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom was a kingdom which occupied southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to 8th century AD. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of...
, the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
was invaded by Muslim armies
Umayyad conquest of Hispania
The Umayyad conquest of Hispania is the initial Islamic Ummayad Caliphate's conquest, between 711 and 718, of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania, centered in the Iberian Peninsula, which was known to them under the Arabic name al-Andalus....
in 711. These armies consisted mainly of Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
s with prominent Arab tribal
Tribes of Arabia
Tribes of Arabia refers to Arab clans hailing from the Arabian Peninsula.Much of the lineage provided before Ma'ad relies on biblical genealogy and therefore questions persist concerning the accuracy of this segment of Arab genealogy...
leaders amongst them and were commonly known as the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
. They conquered nearly all of the peninsula except for the Christian Kingdom of Asturias
Kingdom of Asturias
The Kingdom of Asturias was a Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula founded in 718 by Visigothic nobles under the leadership of Pelagius of Asturias. It was the first Christian political entity established following the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after Islamic conquest of Hispania...
in the far north. Muslim controlled areas of Iberia became known as Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
. The duration of Muslim rule varied greatly, from as little as twenty two years in the Northwest of the peninsula to 781 years in the far south. For the first three centuries of Muslim rule, the peninsula's Christian kingdoms in the north were very much on the defensive, but eventually after the break-up of Muslim unity in the 11th century, the Muslims were driven south in a long process that historians term the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
, which ended with their final capitulation in 1492.
In the first two centuries of Al-Andalus, Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s formed a ruling minority. Another minority, present since Roman times, were the Jews
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
. In the 10th century a massive conversion of the population from Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
took place, so that muladi
Muladi
The Muladi were Muslims of ethnic Iberian descent or of mixed Arab, Berber and European origin, who lived in Al-Andalus during the Middle Ages. They were also called "Musalima" .-Etymology:...
es comprised the majority of the population by the century's end. However, the process began to reverse as the Christian reconquest gathered pace. Ultimately, Jews and Muslims either converted to Catholicism
Converso
A converso and its feminine form conversa was a Jew or Muslim—or a descendant of Jews or Muslims—who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. Mass conversions once took place under significant government pressure...
or were expelled from Spain in 1492 and 1502, following the completion of the Reconquista. Between 1609 and 1614, approximately 300,000 Morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s—new Christians forcibly converted from Islam who continued to speak, write, and dress like Muslims—were expelled
Expulsion of the Moriscos
On April 9, 1609, King Philip III of Spain decreed the Expulsion of the Moriscos . The Moriscos were the descendants of the Muslim population that converted to Christianity under threat of exile from Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502...
.
In 842, another group of Arabian tribes, Amazigh or Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
, invaded the peninsula. They attacked Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
in 844. These Amazigah were hispanised in all Christian kingdoms, while they kept their ethnic identity and culture in Al-Andalus.
The union of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and the conquest of Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
led to the formation of the Spanish state as we know it today and thus to the development of Spanish identity in the form of one people. The Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
had an indigenous population called the Guanches
Guanches
Guanches is the name given to the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago sometime between 1000 BCE and 100 BCE or perhaps earlier...
, whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians and linguists.
Colonialism and emigration
In the 16th century, following the military conquest of most of the new continent, perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Since the conquest of MexicoMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
these two regions became the principal destinations of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. In the period 1850–1950, 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas, particularly Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. From 1840 to 1890, as many as 40,000 Canary Islanders emigrated to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. 94,000 Spaniards chose to go to Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
in the last years of the 19th century, and 250,000 Spaniards lived in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
at the beginning of the 20th century.
By the end of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, some 500,000 Spanish Republican refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s had crossed
the border into France. From 1961 to 1974, at the height of the guest worker
Foreign worker
A foreign worker is a person who works in a country other than the one of which he or she is a citizen. The term migrant worker as discussed in the migrant worker page is used in a particular UN resolution as a synonym for "foreign worker"...
in Western Europe, about 100,000 Spaniards emigrated each year.
The peoples of Spain
Genetic studies, both autosomal and of haplogroup markers, show clearly that native Spaniards are closely related to the rest of Europe, and in particular with the population groups of the Atlantic littoral: FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and its Iberian neighbour, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. As a western country, Spain shares strong cultural relationships with the rest of the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
that extends back to the common medieval and Roman inheritances; but it has especially strong cultural relations with Latin America and the countries of Latin Europe
Latin Europe
Latin Europe is a loose term for the region of Europe with an especially strong Latin cultural heritage inherited from the Roman Empire.-Application:...
, especially Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Portugal, and France.
The genetic signatures of people in Spain and Portugal provide new and explicit evidence of the mass conversions of Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
and Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control. Geneticists have recently found that 20% of the population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11% percent have DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors.
Nationalisms and regionalisms
Within Spain, there are various regional populations including the CastiliansCastilian people
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
, the Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
, Valencians
Valencian people
The Valencians are an ethnic group or nationality whose homeland is the Valencian Community, which is a historical region in eastern Spain. The official languages of Valencia are Catalan , and Spanish ....
and Balearics (who speak Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, a distinct Romance language in eastern Spain), the Basques
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
(who live in the Basque country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
and speak Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, a non-Indo-European language), and the Galicians
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
(who speak Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
, a descendant of old Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...
).
Respect to the existing cultural pluralism
Cultural pluralism
Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. Cultural pluralism is often confused with Multiculturalism...
is important to many Spaniards. In many regions there exist strong regional identities such as Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
, Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
, the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, León
León (historical region)
The region of León or Leonese region is a hitoric territory defined by the 1833 Spanish administrative organisation. The Leonese region encompassed the provinces of Salamanca, Zamora, and León, now part of the modern Spanish autonomous community of Castile and León.-Leonese History:Until 1833, the...
, and Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, while in others (like Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Basque Country
Basque Country
The Basque Country may refer to one of three areas inhabited by the Basque people:*The Basque Country , an autonomous community of Spain *The Basque Country , the approximate cultural area of...
or Galicia) there are stronger national sentiments
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
.
Regional ethnic groups
- Andalusian peopleAndalusian peopleThe Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
- Aragonese peopleAragonese peopleThe Aragonese are an ethnic group or nation living in the historical region of Aragon, between the centre and the north-east of Spain. Their native Aragonese language, which might have been spoken in the whole of the Kingdom of Aragon in the Middle Ages, is nowadays a seriously endangered language,...
- Asturian peopleAsturian peopleThe Asturians are one of the nationalisms of Spain, issuing from the historical country of the Principality of Asturias. They have Celtiberian heritage, related to its historical and cultural links with neighbouring Galicia, as well as Visigothic cultural influences most notably found in the...
- Balearic people
- Basque peopleBasque peopleThe Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
- Canarian peopleCanarian peopleThe Canarians are an ethnic group living in the archipelago of the Canary Islands , near the coast of Western Africa...
- Cantabrian peopleCantabrian peopleThe Cantabrians are an ethnic group living in the historical region of Cantabria, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Sometimes they are referred to as "montañeses" in English "Highlander"...
- Castilian peopleCastilian peopleThe Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
- Catalan peopleCatalan peopleThe Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
- Extremaduran peopleExtremaduran peopleExtremadurans are an ethnic group living in Extremadura, between the centre and the south-west of Spain.Extremadura has usually been, and still is, the poorest part of Spain, although the gap between Extremadura and other places in Spain has been reduced...
- Galician peopleGalician peopleThe Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
- Leonese peopleLeonese peopleThe Leoneses are an ethnic group whose homeland is the former Kingdom of León, now region of Leon which was a country in Southwestern Europe, embracing a territory situated in the north-west of Spain and northeast of Portugal. The languages of León are the Leonese language and Spanish in Spain and...
- Valencian peopleValencian peopleThe Valencians are an ethnic group or nationality whose homeland is the Valencian Community, which is a historical region in eastern Spain. The official languages of Valencia are Catalan , and Spanish ....
The Roma
Spanish Roma, for a number of historical and cultural reasons are not considered a separate or "foreign" population in Spain, but a distinct ethnicity constituting one of the populations native to Spain. Roma play an important role in particularly Andalusian folklore, music, and culture.
There are no official statistics on the Roma population, but estimates fluctuate between 600,000 and 1,500,000, with the Spanish government's estimating a number between 650,000 and 700,000. Most Spanish Roma live in the autonomous community of Andalusia, where they have traditionally enjoyed a higher degree of integration than in the rest of the country. A number of Spanish Kale also live in Southern France, especially in the region of Perpignan
Perpignan
-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...
.
Modern immigration
The population of Spain is becoming increasingly diverse due to recent immigration. From 2000 to 2010, Spain had among the highest per capita immigration rates in the world and the second highest absolute net migration in the World (after the USAUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) and immigrants now make up about 10% of the population. Since 2000, Spain has absorbed more than 3 million immigrants, with thousands more arriving each year. Immigrant population now tops over 4.5 million. They come mainly from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, and West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
.
Languages
Languages spoken in Spain include Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
(castellano or español) (74%), Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
(català, called valencià
Valencian
Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
in the Valencian Community
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
) (17%), Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
(galego) (7%), and Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
(euskara) (2%). Other languages are Asturian
Asturian language
Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
(asturianu), Aranese Gascon
Aranese language
Aranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in north western Catalonia on the border between Spain and France, where it is one of the three official languages besides Catalan and Spanish...
(aranés), Aragonese
Aragonese language
Aragonese is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon, Spain...
(aragonés), and Leonese
Leonese language
The Leonese language is the endonym term used to refer to all vernacular Romance dialects of the Astur-Leonese linguistic group in the Spanish provinces of León and Zamora; Astur-Leonese also includes the dialects...
, each with their own various dialects. Spanish is the official state language, although the other languages are co-official in a number of autonomous communities.
Peninsular Spanish is largely considered to be divided into two main dialects: Castilian Spanish (spoken in the northern half of the country) and Andalusian Spanish (spoken mainly in Andalusia). However, a large part of Spain, including Madrid, Extremadura, Murcia, and Castile-La Mancha, speak local dialects known as "transitional dialects" between Andalusian and Castilian Spanish. The Canary Islands also have a distinct dialect of Castilian Spanish which is very close to Caribbean Spanish
Caribbean Spanish
Caribbean Spanish is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. It closely resembles the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands and Andalusia....
. Linguistically, the Spanish language is a Romance language
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
and is one of the aspects (including laws and general "ways of life") that causes Spaniards to be labelled a Latin people
Latin Europe
Latin Europe is a loose term for the region of Europe with an especially strong Latin cultural heritage inherited from the Roman Empire.-Application:...
. The strong Arabic influence on the language
Arabic influence on the Spanish language
Arabic influence on the Spanish language has been significant due to the Islamic presence in the Iberian peninsula between 711 and 1492 A.D. ....
(nearly 4,000 words are of Arabic origin, many nouns and few verbs) and the independent evolution of the language itself through history, most notably the Basque influence at the formative stage of Castilian Romance, partially explain its difference from other Romance languages. The Basque language left a strong imprint on Spanish both linguistically and phonetically. Other changes in Spanish have come from borrowings from English and French, although English influence is stronger in Latin America than in Spain.
The number of speakers of Spanish
Names given to the Spanish language
There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish and Castilian . Spanish speakers from different countries or backgrounds can show a preference for one term or the other, or use them indiscriminately, but political issues or common usage might lead speakers to prefer one term over the...
as a mother tongue is roughly 35.6 million, while the vast majority of other groups in Spain such as the Galicians
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
, Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
, and Basques
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
also speak Spanish as a first or second language, which boosts the number of Spanish speakers to the overwhelming majority of Spain's population of 46 million.
Spanish was exported to the Americas due to over three centuries of Spanish colonial rule starting with the arrival of Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
to Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
in 1492. Spanish is spoken natively by over 400 million people and spans across most countries of the Americas; from the Southwestern United States in North America down to Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...
, the southernmost region of South America in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. A variety of the language, known as Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish , in Israel commonly referred to as Ladino, and known locally as Judezmo, Djudeo-Espanyol, Djudezmo, Djudeo-Kasteyano, Spaniolit and other names, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish...
or Ladino (or Haketia
Haketia
Haketia is an endangered Jewish-Moroccan Romance language, also known as Djudeo Spañol or Ladino Occidental , that was spoken and spread throughout the North of Morocco such as in Tetuan, Tangiers and the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla, in the latter of which it has achieved partial...
in Morocco), is still spoken by descendants of Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) who fled Spain following a decree of expulsion of Moors and Jews
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
in 1492. Also, a Spanish creole language
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
known as Chabacano
Chavacano language
Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
, which developed by the mixing of Spanish and native Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
and Cebuano language
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
s during Spain's rule of the country through Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
from 1565 to 1898, is spoken in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
(by fewer than 1 million people).
Anti-Franco political dissidents from Spain who moved to Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
during World War II speak a mix of Russian and Spanish, while some speak Catalan and Basque. In Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
(Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
), many Spanish-speaking immigrants relocated in the city adapted a mixed language Franspanol, while they're able to speak French and in addition, English. The Spanish language is also found in small communities of Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Religion
According to several sources (Spanish official polls and others, www.ine.es), about 76% self-identify as Christian Catholics, about 2% with another religious faith, and about 19% identify as atheists.Emigration from Spain
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
or partial
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
Spanish ancestry.
Other regions of the world with small Spanish descended populations include the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Marianas Islands.
People with presumed Spanish ancestry
| Country | Population (% of country) | Reference | Criterion |
|---|---|---|---|
 Spanish MexicanSpanish Mexican A Spanish Mexican is any citizen or resident of Mexico whose ancestral origin is identified as Spanish. Spanish immigration to Mexico began in 1519 and spans to the present day.... |
80,000,000+ | estimated: 15–17% as Whites White Mexican Mexicans of European descent, often called "güeros" or blancos in Mexican Spanish, are generally those of light skin and predominantly European features which are most often associated with Mexico's upper and middle socioeconomic classes... 70–80% as Mestizo Mestizo Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent... s. |
|
 Spanish ArgentineSpanish Argentine Spanish settlement in Argentina, that is the arrival of Spanish emigrants in Argentina, took place firstly in the period before Argentina's independence from Spain, and again in large numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries... |
15,000,000 (50%) | undefined | |
 Spanish BrazilianSpanish Brazilian Brazilians of Spanish descent are Brazilian people of full or partial Spanish ancestry. Brazilians of Spanish descent can be estimated as being 15 million people or 20 million according the Spanish government. -Figures:... |
15,000,000 (8.0%) | estimate by Bruno Ayllón. | |
 Spanish CubanSpanish immigration to Cuba Spanish immigration to Cuba began in 1492 to 1898 as a part of Spain to the present day. The first sighting of a Spanish boat approaching the island was on 27 or 28 October 1492, probably at Bariay on the eastern point of the island... |
10,050,849 (88.89%) | Self-description as White, mulatto and mestizo | |
 Spanish Puerto RicanSpanish immigration to Puerto Rico Spanish immigration to Puerto Rico began in to the present day. On 25 September 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage with 17 ships and 1,200–1,500 men from Cádiz, Spain... |
3,064,862 (80.5%) | Self-description as white 83,879 (2.1%) identified as Spaniard |
|
 Spanish AmericanSpanish American A Spanish American is a citizen or resident of the United States whose ancestors originate from the southwestern European nation of Spain. Spanish Americans are the earliest European American group, with a continuous presence since 1565.-Immigration waves:... |
2,389,841 (0.8%) | Self-description 625,562 (0.2%) identified as Spaniard |
|
 Spanish Canadian |
325,730 (1.0%) | Self-description | |
 Spanish AustralianSpanish Australian Spanish Australians are Australians with ancestry from the European country of Spain. There are approximately 78,271 Australians of Spanish full or partial descent, most of which reside within the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne, with lesser numbers in Brisbane and Perth... |
58,271 (0.0%) | Self-description | |
 Spanish Colombian |
15,000,000 (50%) | undefined |
The listings above shows the ten countries with know collected data on people with presumed ancestors from Spain, although the definitions of each of these are somewhat different and the numbers cannot really be compared. Spanish Chilean
Spanish Chilean
Spanish Chileans are Chileans, of Spanish origin, even though most of the original colonial settlers have mixed with the other Europeans that have settled in the country after Independence up to the 20th century....
of Chile and Spanish Uruguayan of Uruguay could be included by percentage (each at above 40%) instead of numeral size.
See also
- Hispanosphere
- Genetic history of the Iberian PeninsulaGenetic history of the Iberian PeninsulaThe ancestry of modern Iberians is consistent with the geographical situation of the Iberian Peninsula in the south-west of Europe: there are strong connections with both Mediterranean Europe and Atlantic Europe....
- Nationalisms and regionalisms of Spain
- Nationalities and regions of Spain
- Spanish regional identities
- Andalusian peopleAndalusian peopleThe Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
- Aragonese peopleAragonese peopleThe Aragonese are an ethnic group or nation living in the historical region of Aragon, between the centre and the north-east of Spain. Their native Aragonese language, which might have been spoken in the whole of the Kingdom of Aragon in the Middle Ages, is nowadays a seriously endangered language,...
- Asturian peopleAsturian peopleThe Asturians are one of the nationalisms of Spain, issuing from the historical country of the Principality of Asturias. They have Celtiberian heritage, related to its historical and cultural links with neighbouring Galicia, as well as Visigothic cultural influences most notably found in the...
- Balearic people
- Basque peopleBasque peopleThe Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
- Canarian peopleCanarian peopleThe Canarians are an ethnic group living in the archipelago of the Canary Islands , near the coast of Western Africa...
- Cantabrian peopleCantabrian peopleThe Cantabrians are an ethnic group living in the historical region of Cantabria, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Sometimes they are referred to as "montañeses" in English "Highlander"...
- Castilian peopleCastilian peopleThe Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
- Catalan peopleCatalan peopleThe Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
- Extremaduran peopleExtremaduran peopleExtremadurans are an ethnic group living in Extremadura, between the centre and the south-west of Spain.Extremadura has usually been, and still is, the poorest part of Spain, although the gap between Extremadura and other places in Spain has been reduced...
- Galician peopleGalician peopleThe Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
- Leonese peopleLeonese peopleThe Leoneses are an ethnic group whose homeland is the former Kingdom of León, now region of Leon which was a country in Southwestern Europe, embracing a territory situated in the north-west of Spain and northeast of Portugal. The languages of León are the Leonese language and Spanish in Spain and...
- Valencian peopleValencian peopleThe Valencians are an ethnic group or nationality whose homeland is the Valencian Community, which is a historical region in eastern Spain. The official languages of Valencia are Catalan , and Spanish ....
- Andalusian people
- Languages of Spain
- SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
(see also dialects and varieties) - Catalan/ValencianCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
- BasqueBasque languageBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
- GalicianGalician languageGalician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
- AraneseAranese languageAranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in north western Catalonia on the border between Spain and France, where it is one of the three official languages besides Catalan and Spanish...
- AragoneseAragonese languageAragonese is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon, Spain...
- AsturianAsturian languageAsturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
- Judaeo-SpanishJudaeo-SpanishJudaeo-Spanish , in Israel commonly referred to as Ladino, and known locally as Judezmo, Djudeo-Espanyol, Djudezmo, Djudeo-Kasteyano, Spaniolit and other names, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish...
- LeoneseLeonese languageThe Leonese language is the endonym term used to refer to all vernacular Romance dialects of the Astur-Leonese linguistic group in the Spanish provinces of León and Zamora; Astur-Leonese also includes the dialects...
- Murcian languageMurcian SpanishMurciano, more popularly known as panocho, is a variant of the Peninsular Spanish, spoken mainly in autonomous region of Murcia and the adjacent Comarca of Vega Baja del Segura in the province of Alicante on the Mediterranean coast.It is considered a southern dialect of the Spanish language,...
- Spanish
- Ancient Spanish peoples
- Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaPre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaThis is a list of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian peninsula .-Non-Indo-European:*Aquitanians**Aquitani**Autrigones - some consider them Celtic .**Caristii - some consider them Celtic ....
- AquitaniansAquitanian languageThe Aquitanian language was spoken in ancient Aquitaine before the Roman conquest and, probably much later, until the Early Middle Ages....
and Vascones - CeltiberiansCeltiberiansThe Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group used the Celtic Celtiberian language.Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain...
- Gallaeci
- IberiansIberiansThe Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
- LusitaniansLusitaniansThe Lusitanians were an Indo-European people living in the Western Iberian Peninsula long before it became the Roman province of Lusitania . They spoke the Lusitanian language which might have been Celtic. The modern Portuguese people see the Lusitanians as their ancestors...
- TartessiansTartessian languageThe Tartessian language is the extinct Paleohispanic language of inscriptions in the Southwestern script found in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula: mainly in the south of Portugal , but also in Spain . There are 95 of these inscriptions with the longest having 82 readable signs...
- VettonesVettonesThe Vettones were one of the pre-Roman Celtic peoples of the Iberian Peninsula .- Origins :...
- Aquitanians
- GreeksGreeksThe Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and PunicsPunicsThe Punics were a group of western Semitic-speaking peoples from Carthage in North Africa who traced their origins to a group of Phoenician and Cypriot settlers, but also to North African Berbers . Punics were probably a mix of Berbers and Phoenicians in terms of culture and ancestry...
(PhoeniciaPhoeniciaPhoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns and CarthaginiansCarthaginian RepublicAncient Carthage was a civilization centered on the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, located in North Africa on the Gulf of Tunis, outside what is now Tunis, Tunisia. It was founded in 814 BC...
) - GuanchesGuanchesGuanches is the name given to the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago sometime between 1000 BCE and 100 BCE or perhaps earlier...
(in the Canary IslandsCanary IslandsThe Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
) - RomansAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
- SuebiSuebiThe Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
- VandalsVandalsThe Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....
and AlansAlansThe Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —... - Visigoths
- MoorsMoorsThe description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
of the Al-AndalusAl-AndalusAl-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
(ArabArabArab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s/BerbersBerber peopleBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
) - JewsHistory of the Jews in SpainSpanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...
- Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
- Peoples with Spanish ancestry
- CriollosCriollo peopleThe Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
- Latin AmericansLatin AmericansLatin Americans are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with...
- Spanish AmericanSpanish AmericanA Spanish American is a citizen or resident of the United States whose ancestors originate from the southwestern European nation of Spain. Spanish Americans are the earliest European American group, with a continuous presence since 1565.-Immigration waves:...
s - Spanish ArgentineSpanish ArgentineSpanish settlement in Argentina, that is the arrival of Spanish emigrants in Argentina, took place firstly in the period before Argentina's independence from Spain, and again in large numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
s - Brazilians of Spanish descent
- Spanish ChileanSpanish ChileanSpanish Chileans are Chileans, of Spanish origin, even though most of the original colonial settlers have mixed with the other Europeans that have settled in the country after Independence up to the 20th century....
s - Spanish MexicanSpanish MexicanA Spanish Mexican is any citizen or resident of Mexico whose ancestral origin is identified as Spanish. Spanish immigration to Mexico began in 1519 and spans to the present day....
s - Spanish Puerto RicanSpanish immigration to Puerto RicoSpanish immigration to Puerto Rico began in to the present day. On 25 September 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage with 17 ships and 1,200–1,500 men from Cádiz, Spain...
s - Spanish PeruvianSpanish PeruvianA Spanish Peruvian is a Peruvian citizen of Spanish descent. Among European Peruvians, the Spanish are the largest group of immigrants to settle in the country.-History:...
s - Spanish UruguayansUruguayUruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
- Ethnic groups in Central AmericaEthnic groups in Central AmericaCentral America is a region formed by 6 Latin American countries and one Anglo American nation...
- White Latin AmericanWhite Latin AmericanWhite Latin Americans are the people of Latin America who are white in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country...
s - Isleños
- Louisiana Creole peopleLouisiana Creole peopleLouisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
- Spanish Britons
- Spanish AustralianSpanish AustralianSpanish Australians are Australians with ancestry from the European country of Spain. There are approximately 78,271 Australians of Spanish full or partial descent, most of which reside within the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne, with lesser numbers in Brisbane and Perth...
s - Spanish Canadians
- Spanish EquatoguineansSpanish EquatoguineansSpanish Equatoguinean is a person of Spanish descent who are residents born or living in the Central African country of Equatorial Guinea, as well as indigenous Equatoguinean descendants living in or born in Spain. The population living in Equatorial Guinea numbers an estimated 16,000...
- Los Fernandinos of Equatorial GuineaFernandinoNamed in reverence of the Portuguese explorer Fernão do Pó who is given credit for discovering their indigenous and adopted homelands, Fernandinos are creole, multi-ethnic or multi-race populations of Equatorial Guinea and former Spanish Guinea. Each population hails from a distinct ethnic, social,...
- Emancipados of Equatorial GuineaEmancipadosEmancipado was a term used for an African descended social-political demographic within the population of Spanish Guinea that existed in the early to mid 1900s...
- Filipinos of Spanish descent
- Criollos