SPAIN (Lat. Hispania, Sp. Espana), a kingdom the territory of which ir1 Europe em braces more than four-fifths of the Iberian Peninsula, the small islands near the coasts, the Balearic Islands and the territory of Llivia, locked in France and separated com pletely from the rest of Spain; in northern Africa the possessions of Ceuta and Melilla, the islands of Peregil, Velez de la Gomera, Alhucemas, Alborin and Chafarinas; off the western coast of Africa, the Canary Islands, and along or near that coast a continental dis trict that, extending at the west of the Desert of Sahara between the capes Bojador and Blanco, is known as the Spanish Sahara and the territory of the Ifni River; and in the Gulf of Guinea the Islands of Fernando P6o, Corisco and Annobon, the islets Elobey Grande, Elobey, Pequefia, Banie, Leva and Bafle, and that part of the African continent denominated Spanish Guinea, on the Muni River. Spain also exercises a protectorate over the African coast from Cape Bojador to the southern frontier of Morocco. Situated in the south western part of Europe and separated from the main body of the European or Eurasian con tinent by the cordillera of the Pyrenees, the peninsular part of Spain extends from lat. 43° 27' 25" N. at Point Estaca de Vares to lat. 35° 59' 50" N. at the south point of Tarifa Island; from long. 3° 20' E. of Greenwich (7° 0' 28" E. of Madrid) at Cape Creus to 9° 15' W. of Greenwich (5° 37' 03" W. of Madrid) at Cape Toriflana. Its total area is given as 195, 000 square miles, approximately, or (by Direcci6n General del Instituto Geografico y Estadistico, Geografica y Estadistica de Espaila' (Madrid 1912-14), 492,247 square kilometers, and its boundaries are: On the north the Cantabrian Sea or Bay of Biscay, France and the republic of Andorra; on the east the Mediterranean Sea; on the south the same sea, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlan tic Ocean; on the west that ocean and Portugal.
Distinguishing physical characteristics are the high average elevation of the land above sea-level and the regularity of the coasts. The ratio of that part of the entire area lying below 1,600 feet to that part uplifted above 1,600 feet is approximately 23 to 36. In other
words, more than three-fifths must be regarded as highlands, and the altitude of one-third of the highlands is over 3,200 feet. Excepting Switzerland, Spain is the highest of all European countries (mean altitude of the former 1,300 metres and of the latter 660 metres). It is even true that the mean eleva tion of the cordillera of the Pyrenees is greater than that of the Alps, although the latter has some peaks higher than the former; and the Sierra Nevada rises into the region of perpetual snows. In the centre of the country is a high region forming a secondary peninsula, so to speak, with a mean altitude of 2,000 feet, known as the meseta. The water-parting is in the eastern half of the country as a rule, the Ebro being the only Spanish river with a long course flowing into the Mediterranean. Ex cepting the Ebro Valley, then, the western slope is much more extensive and less abrupt than the eastern; and communication between the centre and the western littoral is naturally easier ,than between the centre and the Mediterranean; but Portugal has separated the mostjaccessible maritime zone from the central and so Spain has kept an extensive littoril without any easy natural communica tion Aetween it and the interior except the val ley f the Guadalquivir. (See RivEas).
e western slope is divided into five un M I bands by four mountain systems which bound the great valleys of the rivers Duero, Tagus (both mainly Portuguese), Guadiana (the lower course of which partly in Portugal) and Guadalquivir; leaving at the north a narrow band which sends its waters directly to the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay) and is bounded by that sea on the north and the Cantabrian Mountains on the south. All these cordilleras have a fundamentally east and west direction in Spanish territory, but change abruptly to take a northwest-southeast direction when Portugal is reached, and to some extent create barriers or obstacles con stituting the natural frontier of Portugal — so far as the boundary between the two nations can be regarded as natural, and not purely con ventional.