Spain

Spain shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal. Spain is 85% of the Iberian Peninsula in southwest Europe. Spain’s capital is Madrid. Spain covers a total of 192,896 sq. mi. land area. Spain population is 47,042,984 with a growth rate of 0.654%. Spain ethnicity is made of Mediterranean and Nordic types. Roman Catholic’s is the most popular religion, having 94% of that in religion in Spain and leaving the rest of the religions at 6%. Spain’s main language is Spanish and can also be defined as Castilian; it is used by 72% of the population. Galician is also used in the region of Galicia with 7% of the population and Basque 2%. Catalan is spoken in Catalonia with 17%. Spain also has major trading partners which are France, Germany, China, Portugal, Italy, UK and Netherlands. Spain currently has a parliamentary monarch government; meaning is a form of government set under a constitutional system which elects a hereditary monarch as the head of state. The monarch powers are made by the advice of the prime minister although the monarch owns certain reserved powers that they could use on their own granted by the parliament. Each monarch has accepted reserve powers of their own known as the Royal Prerogative which can be used in a constitutional crisis. The prime minister is Mariano Rajoy. The head of state or ruler is King Juan Carlos 1. ("Spain," 2007) Spain economy is considered as the 23rd largest most developed country. Between the years of 2008 and 2012 the recession left over a quarter of Spain’s employment unemployed by 2012. The Spanish economy decreased by 1.4% until 2013. However, in May 2013 Spain attained a 2.19 billion euros trade excess with the rest of the European union. Exports raised 7.3% in May of the same year ("Economy of Spain," 2012)

In addition, Spain has had to experience one of the highest increases of unemployment in the Great financial crisis. Spain’s building markets crashed including the bankruptcy of many major companies and the