Spain Collection
SPAIN (España), a kingdom in the extreme south-west of Europe, comprising about eleven-thirteenths of the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, and the fortified station of Ceuta, on the Moroccan coast opposite to Gibraltar. Each of the two island groups forms one of the forty-nine provinces of the kingdom, although only the first named belongs geographically to Spain. Ceuta is included in the province of Cadiz.
In 1900 the kingdom (exclusive of its colonies) had a population of 18,607,674, and a total area of 194,700 sq. m. It is thus rather more than twice the size of Great Britain, nearly 50,000 sq. m. larger than Japan, and nearly 85,000 sq. m. larger than Italy and Sicily. Exclusive of the Canaries its area is 191,893 sq. m. On all sides except that of Portugal the boundaries of continental Spain are natural, the Peninsula being separated from France by the Pyrenees and on every other side being surrounded by the sea.
On the side of Portugal a tract of inhospitable country ;led originally to the separation between the two kingdoms, inasmuch as it caused the reconquest of the comparatively populous maritime tracts from the Moors to be carried out independently of that of the eastern kingdoms, which were also well peopled. The absence of any such means of intercommunication as navigable rivers afford has favoured the continuance of this isolation. The precise line of the western frontier is formed for a considerable length by portions of the chief rivers or by small tributaries, and on the north (between Portugal and Galicia) it is determined to a large extent by small mountain ranges. The British rock of Gibraltar, in the extreme south of the peninsula, is separated from Spain by a low isthmus known as the Neutral Ground.
By the relinquishment of Cuba and the cession of Porto Rico, the Philippine and Sulu Islands, and Guam, the largest of the Ladrones, to the United States, as a consequence of the war of 1898, and of the remaining Ladrone or Marianne Islands, together with the Caroline Colonial Possessions. and Pelew Islands, to Germany by a treaty of the 8th of February 1899, the colonial possessions of Spain were greatly reduced. Apart from Ceuta, Spain possesses on the Moroccan seaboard Melilla, Alhucemas, Pefion de la Gomera, Ifni, and the Chaffarinas islets. Besides these isolated posts Spain holds Rio de Oro, a stretch of the Saharan coast, and its hinterland lying between Morocco and French West Africa; the Muni River Settlements or Spanish Guinea, situated between French Congo and the German colony of Cameroon; Fernando Po, Annobon, Corisco and other islands in the Gulf of Guinea. Spain has given to France the right of pre-emption over any of her West African colonies.
Bibliography.— José Rodriguez, Biblioteca valentina (Valencia, 1747); Vicente Ximeno, Escritores del reyno de Valencia (2 vols., Valencia, 1747-1749); Justo Pastor Fuster, Biblioteca valenciana (2 vols., Valencia, 1827-1830); Felix Torres Amat, Memoiras para ayudar á formar un diccionario critico de los escritores catalanes (Barcelona, 1836), with a supplement by J. Corminas (Burgos, 1849); F. R. Camboulin, Essai sur l'histoire de la littérature catalane (Paris, 1858); M. Mila y Fontanals, De los Trovadores en España (Barcelona 1861), and studies included in his Obras completas; E. Cardona, De la Antica literatura catalana (Naples, 1880); A. Morel-Fatio, " Katalanische Litteratur," in the second volume of the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, pt. ii., and Catalogue des manuscrits espagnols et portugais de la bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1881–1892); V. M. O. Denk, Einführung in die Geschichte der altcalalanischen Litteratur (Munich, 1893); J. Masso Torrents, Manuscrits Catalans de la biblioteca nacional de Madrid (Barcelona, 1896). For the modern period see Joaquin Rubió y Ors, Breve reseña del actual renacimiento de la lengua y literatura catalanas (2 vols., Barcelona, 1880); F. M. Tubino, Historia del renacimiento contempordneo en Cataluña, Baleares y Valencia (Madrid, 1880); A. de Molins, Diccionario biográfico y bibliográfico de escritores y artistas catalanes del siglo xix. (Barcelona, 1891-1896); E. Toda, La Poesia catalana a Sardenya (Barcelona, 1888). Important articles by P. Meyer, A. Thomas, A. PagSs, J. Masso Torrents, A. Morel-Fatio and others appear from time to time in Romania, the Revue des langues romanes, the Revue hispanique, the Revista catalana and other special periodicals.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 25 pp. 527-591.
Spain by A. E. Houghton, Alfred Morel-Fatio, David Hannay, Francis Haverfield, James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Kingsley Jayne & W. A. PhillipsAvailable Books
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