SPAIN
Hello, I’m from Spain!
It’s a very big country. It has an extension of 504.645 km2.
The name of Med in the area is Mediterranean sea.
Our neighboring countries are Portugal (west), France (North) and Morocco, in Africa (South).
The capital city of Spain is Madrid. It is in the centre of Spain and it’s very beautiful. I live in Barcelona. It’s also a very important city in Spain and, in my opinion, Barcelona is more beautiful than Madrid.
Spain has 17 autonomous communities: Andalucía, Aragón, Balearic Islands, Canárias, Cantábria,Castilla y la Mancha, Valéncia, Extremadura, Galicia, Rioja, Madrid, Múrica, Navarra, País Vasco and Catalonia, where I live.
Spain has 46.661.950 inhabitants. The density of population is of 92,46 inhab/km2.
The official courrency used in Spain since 2002 has been the Euro (€), and the official lenguage is Spanish. Some communities have a co-official lenguage:
• Catalan coofficial in Cataluña and Balearic Islands.
• Valencian coofficial in Valencia.
• Galician coofficial in Galicia.
• Euskera coofficial in Pais Vasco and Navarra.
The president of Spain is Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
My country is a monarchy: Juan Carlos I de Borbón is the king, but he hasn’t got political power.
Spain suffered a dictatorship in 1939 to 1975 and it was directed by Francisco Franco. The monarchy was interrupted for a while, and when Franco died the dictatorship finished and Juan Carlos I de Borbón was the king.
In 1981 Tejero tried to start another dictatorship but Juan Carlos didn’t accept that and he stopped it.
In my opinion, my country has a good standard of living.
We have a lot of traditions, but one of the more famous is bullfighting.
A lot of communities have their traditions, for example:
• Los Fermines in Pamplona.
• La Feria d’Avril in Sevilla.
• Las Fallas in Valencia.
• San Isidro in Madrid.
• Sant Jordi in Catalonia. Cause I live in Catalonia I think that it’s a very beautiful tradition. Men give women a rose and women give men a book.
Some of the most traditional food are:
• Chorizo like a sausage.
• Gazpacho soup with tomato and vegetables.
• Paella rice with shellfish.
• Las tapas.
• Big variety of cheeses.
• A big prodution of wine.
One of the bad things of Spain is that it has a lot of pollution and it has many difficulties to reduce it.
Now Spain has a lot of problems with the unemployment due to the the crisis.
In june Spain has been the country of the UE with more unemployment, with 18,1 % of active population without work.
In Spain the UDH is very high: 0,938, and the PIB is 1.396.881.
Sara Monsó
