España (Spain)

They have, there is no doubt, a generosity, a species of nobility, that do not really belong to the twentieth century.
—George Orwell, on the Spanish people in Chapter 14 of Homage to Catalonia

Spain is the homeland of Elena and the country where we now live, by the foot of the Mountains of Madrid.

These lands were subject to many external influences since prehistoric times and have been one of the great melting pot of races and cultures, particularly a blend of Moorish and Jewish, until it emerged as a modern state in the 15th century with the Catholic Monarchs and the completion of the Reconquista in the Annus Mirabilis 1492 where they also started a new era with the discovery and then conquest of a new world. The Spanish language became as a result one of the most important of the planet.

Gallery

The acqueduct of Segovia, on 30 April (2006).
Fabrice in the Corral de Comedias of Almagro, on 13 February (2007).
A ciconia (cigüeña) and its nest on a belltower in Alcalá de Henares on 7 March (2008).
A land of seashores, here in Cambados, in December (2016).
A land of proper castles, here in Baños de la Encina on 29 December (2017).
A land of olives and history: Granada in Andalusia, December (2017).
A land of wine and Plaza Mayor, here in Valdepeñas, in January (2018).
A view from Muslim Spain in la Alhambra in 23 December (2017).
A view from the Spanish empire: Carlos V's palace, id.
In the streets of Baeza, in January (2018).
A typical Andalusian square in Granada, December (2017).
La Guardia de Jaén under a stormy sky, in January (2018).
The Torre del Oro in Sevilla, glittering like gold on the Guadalquivir, the "sea" to the New World, in March (2018).
Gate to the Salón de los Embajadores in the palace of Pedro I de Castilla, March (2018).
Los campos de Castilla, as they are rarely seen when it rained enough, from an overlanding trip near home on 20 May (2018).
Julia trodding the center of the Iberian peninsula on 24 August (2018).
The hills and mountains of Asturias, on 31 August (2018).
The Plaza Mayor of Pedraza, one of the most iconic of the country, on 15 February (2019).
The medieval Plaza Mayor (del Coso) of Peñafiel, on 3 March (2019).
The monastory of Uclés, on 13 April (2019).
A typical mushroom rock from the Provincia de Cuenca, during our 2019 Easter trip.
The scenery carved by the Jucar, id.
Antoine on the Moorish mountains of Castile–La_Mancha, id.
Albarracin, on 16 April (2019).
In the best walk in the Sierra de Madrid, on 14 June (2020).
El Escorial from the flanks of the Abantos, on 26 July (2020).
In the shadows of El Tolmo de la Pedriza de Madrid, too big to be a rock, too small to be a mountain, on 1 May (2022).
The Castillo de Anguix, guarding the Tajo downstream the embalse of Entrepeñas in Guadalajara, on 8 May (2022).

Autonomous Communities

Municipalities

Madrid and Barcelona are the two Spanish megalopolis, sometimes with a bit of antagonism.

The top 50 cities appear in the list below (click to unfold):

#	Municipality	Pop. (2009)
1	Madrid	3,255,944
2	Barcelona	1,621,537
3	Valencia	852,208
4	Seville	703,206
5	Zaragoza	674,317
6	Málaga	568,305
7	Murcia	436,870
8	Palma	401,270
9	Las Palmas	381,847
10	Bilbao	354,860
11	Alicante	334,757
12	Córdoba	328,428
13	Valladolid	317,864
14	Vigo	297,332
15	Gijón	277,554
16	L'Hospitalet de Llobregat	257,038
17	A Coruña	246,056
18	Vitoria-Gasteiz	235,661
19	Granada	234,325
20	Elche	230,112
21	Oviedo	224,005
22	Santa Cruz de Tenerife	222,417
23	Badalona	219,547
24	Cartagena	211,996
25	Terrassa	210,941
26	Jerez de la Frontera	207,532
27	Sabadell	206,493
28	Móstoles	206,478
29	Alcalá de Henares	204,574
30	Pamplona	198,491
31	Fuenlabrada	197,836
32	Almería	188,810
33	Leganés	186,066
34	Donostia-San Sebastián	186,066
35	Santander	182,700
36	Castellón de la Plana	180,005
37	Burgos	178,966
38	Albacete	169,716
39	Alcorcón	167,967
40	Getafe	167,164
41	Salamanca	155,619
42	Logroño	152,107
43	San Cristóbal de La Laguna	150,661
44	Huelva	148,806
45	Badajoz	148,334
46	Tarragona	140,323
47	Lleida	138,416
48	Marbella	134,623
49	León	134,305
50	Cádiz	126,766