介绍西班牙英语怎么说
① 关于西班牙的英语介绍，急！！！
Spanish Cuisine:The Spanish have never acquired the international reputation for haute cuisine enjoyed by their French neighbours. And millions of foreign tourists who flock to Spain’ costas each summer find their menu options at best limited and at worst swimming in garlic!
In fact many overseas visitors never sample a taste of the “real Spain” because the most popular coastal areas have been saturated with fast food joints and international restaurants.
To savour the truly wonderful world of Spanish food it’s essential to venture beyond the seaside tourist traps and follow the example of the Spaniards. Food is far more than a way of keeping body and soul together in Spain – it’s an entire experience and the focal point of the Spanish way of life.
Influences on Spanish Food
Spanish food reflects this vast country’s turbulent history, diverse geography and Mediterranean culture. Centuries of occupation by the Moors, who were the first to cultivate olives and oranges in Spain, made a huge impact on the Spanish diet as did decades of extreme poverty suffered by millions under Franco’s repressive regime.
You can taste the Moorish influence in the huge variety of Spanish dishes flavoured with cumin, saffron and other exotic spices. The sumptuous soups and stews which you’ll find all over Spain today were the staple diet of peasant communities, surviving on home grown vegetables and meat bones stewed for hours to eke out very ounce of flavour (just like grandma used to make!)
Paella - the most famous Spanish food
It was the poor peasant people of the Valencian region who invented Spain’s most famous dish, paella. The original recipe combined home grown veg (usually green and broad beans) with off cuts of rabbit and the short grain rice mass proced around the city of Valencia thanks to the sophisticated irrigation system introced by the Moors. Even today this is the traditional Valencian paella which you’ll find in thousands of towns, villages and isolated mountain pueblos throughout the region. It’s cheap, full of flavour and filling which were the three ingredients most sought after by those struggling to survive in the dire days ring and after the Spanish Civil War. This kind of paella is a far cry from the exotic dishes you’ll find down at the seafront where chefs throw in an abundance of mussels, clams, langoustines and other pricey trimmings designed to tempt tourists with plenty of money to spend.
No matter where you are in Spain, as a general rule of thumb you’ll get tastier food for far less money if you eat where the Spanish eat and follow them along to the street markets which are a treasure trove of fresh, cheap and high quality local proce.
Spain is the second largest country in western Europe and there are many regional variations in terms of the local cuisine. But the national diet is characterised by a reliance on olive oil for cooking and flavouring and a passion for all kinds of fish. Spanish workmen eat octopus washed down with a brandy or glass of red wine for breakfast and toddlers happily tuck into a plate of snails or clams at any time of day (can you imagine a British kid?!)
Food in Andalucia
The Costa del Sol is famed for its grilled sardines, barbecued on the beach in the summer months, whilst wider Andalucia brought us Gazpacho (chilled tomato soup) and the delightful habit of serving tapas with every drink. Traditionally a tapa, which means cover in Spanish, was served free with a drink – maybe a morsel of dried ham, manchego cheese or tortilla. The snack was placed on the small plate used to cover the drink to keep away flies. In most tourist centres these days you have to pay for your tapas but they’re still served free in many inland areas of Andalucia and elsewhere around the country.
Galicia, in the north west corner of Spain, is the place to visit for some of the finest fresh fish in the world. And in many regions where the numbers of pigs and sheep outnumber people, you’ll find a heavy reliance on pork and lamb dishes. Pork is the most widely eaten meat in Spain – partly because the Moors refused to eat it so cooking with pork became almost a part of the Christian religion!
An exciting way of exploring Spanish food and wine is through culinary tours in Spain. You can find all sorts of them, from wine tasting in Rioja to tapas tours in cities like Madrid and Barcelona, as well as cooking lessons in emblematic places and olive oil or serrano ham routes.
Choose an area in Spain to read more about different types of spanish food.
② 用英文介绍西班牙
SPAIN - A FIRST IMPRESSION
Widely known for Flamenco music and dance, bull-fights, fantastic beaches and lots of sunshine, Spain has to offer much more than that. It is - and has been for thousands of years - one of the cultural centers of Europe. It has beautiful cities and towns, offering really old monuments as well as futuristic architecture. Its various regions are all different one to each other, geographically, climatically and even in personality. It is a fascinating country to know and to know more about it.
"Spain is different!", Spaniards use to say. They don't specify compared to what: to the rest of Europe, to the rest of the world, or even to itself ? We don't know it either, but we do our best to supply you with loads of information so you can find the answer to this question and to many more by yourself.
③ 求一篇西班牙语自我介绍翻译~！
Me llamo Jason, graado de la universidad de estudios extranjeros de SH. Tengo 25 anos... Me gusta navegar en el internet, leer libros, hacer deportes y tambien escuchar la musica en mi tiempo libre.
Masto ingles, espanol y el computador. Tengo talento en idiomas y tecnologico de informacion. 这句话还真不好意思翻。。。。
Con 2 anos de experiencias como asistente de comercio internacional y presente de conferencias internacional, espero que pueda desarrollarme en el mercado de comercio y consulto. Desearia que pueda usted concederme la oportunidad y suerte de tener una colocacion en su empresa.
Gracias.
个人觉得再有点ambicion的感觉就mejor了。。。
感谢您给我一个做作业的机会。。。。。
大哥您西语的为神马要上网来问这个自我介绍的翻译？
④ 西班牙的英文介绍
楼上的维基网络的英文
我给你中文的参照一下
西班牙，正式名称为西班牙王国（西班牙语：Reino de España；英语：Kingdom of Spain），是一个位于欧洲西南部的国家。
西班牙拥有悠久的历史。在公元前35,000年前后，西班牙就出现了智人。公元前九世纪左右腓尼基人、古希腊人、迦太基人以及凯尔特人开始进入伊比利亚半岛。随后到了公元前218年，罗马人开始占领伊比利亚半岛。罗马人的入侵对现代西班牙的语言、宗教和法律产生了深远的影响。公元四世纪，日耳曼部落入侵。到公元五世纪，西班牙被西哥特人征服，随后在公元711年，穆斯林的北非人摩尔人入侵西班牙，西班牙人开始了驱逐入侵者的战争。这场战争持续到1492年。在1512年，西班牙完成了统一。
15世纪末，西班牙已经成为一个殖民大国，逐渐成为西班牙帝国(Spanish Empire)。16世纪，西班牙通过在美洲获得的巨大财富成为欧洲最强大的国家。但是然而由此引发的持续反抗斗争最终使得西班牙的国力衰退下来。18世纪的君主王位继承战争使得西班牙陷入了毁灭的灾难，西班牙先后失去了比利时、卢森堡、米兰等地。随着19世纪法国拿破仑的入侵，西班牙在整个19世纪的大部分时间都在进行反抗斗争。这时期西班牙开始失去她在美洲的殖民地，并最终导致了1898年的美西战争。
20世纪的初期曾经带来的一段时期的和平，独裁统治（1923年—1931年）结束后第二共和国诞生。随着政党的日益增多，以及其他各方面的压力，连同未受控制的暴力活动，导致了1936年七月发生了西班牙内战。接着国家主义者打败共和党人上台，弗朗西斯科·佛朗哥开始对西班牙实施长达36年的独裁统治。
然而，在20世纪60年代到70年代里，西班牙转变成为一个拥有繁荣旅游业的现代工业经济国家，佛朗哥将军于1975年9月去世，在此之前他指定了胡安·卡洛斯王子作为他的后继者。胡安·卡洛斯王子假装答应接受了国王以及国家元首的头衔，但却开始领导西班牙向更文明的现代化民主国家转变，特别是反对了1981年的政变企图。1976年7月国王任命原国民运动秘书长阿·苏亚雷斯为首相，开始向西方议会民主政治过渡。这标志着西班牙同佛朗哥专制制度的彻底决裂。西班牙在1982年加入了北大西洋公约组织，随后在1986年，西班牙加入了欧洲联盟。
⑤ 西班牙的英语简介
Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: España, Reino de España), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two small exclaves in North Africa (both bordering Morocco). The mainland of Spain is bounded on the south and east by Mediterranean Sea (containing the Balearic Islands), on the north by the Bay of Biscay and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean (containing the Canary Islands off the African coast). Spain shares land borders with Portugal, France, Andorra, Gibraltar and Morocco. It is the largest of three sovereign states that make up the Iberian Peninsula — the others being Portugal and Andorra.
Different cultures have settled in the area of modern Spain, such as the Celts, Iberians, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors. For just over five centuries, ring the Middle Ages, large areas were under the control of Islamic rulers, a fragment of which survived as late as 1492, when the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragó completed the 770 years long process of driving the Moors out. That same year, Christopher Columbus reached the New World, leading to the creation of the world-wide Spanish Empire. Spain became the most powerful country in Europe, but continued wars and other problems graally reced Spain to a diminished status. The 20th century was dominated in the middle years by the Franco dictatorship; with the dawn of a stable democracy in 1978, and having joined what is now known as the European Union in 1986, Spain has enjoyed an economic and cultural renaissance.
There are a number of hypotheses as to the origin of the Roman name "Hispania", the root of the Spanish name España and the English name Spain.
Spain is a democracy which is organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is a developed country with the eighth-largest economy in the world.[3]
⑥ 求 高一 英语 关于介绍西班牙的 简介小短文，大概15句话左右。
国名：西班牙(Spain)
重要节日：国庆节：10月12日；宪法日：12月6日。
首都：马德里 (Madrid)，人口310万（2004年）。
面积：505,925平方公里
人口：45,200,737人（2007年估计）主要是卡斯蒂利亚人（即西班牙人），少数民族有加泰罗尼亚人（681万）、加里西亚人（275万）和巴斯克人（212万）。
宗教：96％的居民信奉天主教。
语言：卡斯蒂利亚语（即西班牙语）是官方语言和全国通用语言。少数民族语言在本地区亦为官方语言。
国家体制：君主立宪制，议会民主制
国花：石榴花
国石：绿宝石
国球：水球
货币：欧元(旧货币：比塞塔)
时差：比北京时间晚7小时，夏令时期间6小时；
西班牙国旗：呈长方形，长与宽之比为3∶2。旗面由三个平行的横长方形组成，上下均为红色，各占旗面的1／4；中间为黄色。黄色部分偏左侧绘有西班牙国徽。红、黄两色是西班牙人民喜爱的传统颜色，并分别代表组成西班牙的四个古老王国。 有一种说法是红色代表碧血，黄色代表黄沙，碧血黄沙象征的是西班牙人民酷爱的斗牛运动，从中体现的是英勇顽强、不畏强暴的精神。
西班牙国徽：中心图案为盾徽。盾面上有六组图案：左上角是红地上黄色城堡，右上角为白地上头戴王冠的红狮，城堡和狮子是古老西班牙的标志，分别象征卡斯蒂利亚和莱昂；左下角为黄、红相间的竖条，象征东北部的阿拉贡；右下角为红地上金色链网，象征位于北部的纳瓦拉；底部是白地上绿叶红石榴，象征南部的格拉纳达；盾面中心的蓝色椭圆形中有三朵百合花，象征国家富强、人民幸福、民族团结。盾徽上端有一顶大王冠，这是国家权力的象征。盾徽两旁各有一根海格力斯柱子。亦称大力神银柱，左、右柱顶端分别是王冠和帝国冠冕，缠绕着立柱的饰带上写着“海外还有大陆”。
国歌：《皇家进行曲》 西班牙国歌最早源于十八世纪卡洛斯三世时期的格拉纳达军队进行曲，皇家名称为《西班牙荣誉进行曲》，民间则称为《步兵进行曲》。王室曾多次组织音乐家谱写新歌，但无一能够超过这个曲子，于是这首有曲无词的国歌便延续下来，直至2007年年底，由全国性发起征集歌词的活动，确定了西班牙国歌歌词，歌词为“西班牙万岁！／我们一起唱／用不同的声音／同一颗心；”
“西班牙万岁！／从绿色的山谷／到浩瀚的海洋／是兄弟的赞歌；”
“我们热爱自己的祖国／要去拥抱她／在她湛蓝的天空下／各民族亲如一家；”
“光荣的子孙／伟大的历史／歌唱正义与繁荣／歌唱民主与和平。”
4段歌词体现了“团结、自由、民主、和平”。
但是这段歌词并没有得到广泛的认可，西班牙国歌的歌词问题还是被搁置了下来。
1931年，第二共和国曾把《列戈颂歌》定为国歌，但是民主政府失败后又恢复了原有国歌的地位。
重要人物：胡安·卡洛斯一世：国王，西班牙国家元首。1938年1月5日生于罗马，西班牙波旁王朝末代国王阿方索十三世之孙。幼时随父旅居意大利、瑞士和葡萄牙等国。1955年起，先后在西海、陆、空三军军事学院和大学学习，毕业后到政府各部门实习行政管理，1969年7月经西班牙议会批准为王位继承人，1975年11月登基。爱好滑雪、狩猎、航海、航空。1962年与希腊公主索菲娅结婚，有二女一子。
何塞·路易斯·罗德里格斯·萨帕特罗：首相。1960年8月4日生于卡斯蒂利亚-莱昂自治区。法学学士。1979年加入工社党。1986年成为西最年轻的众议员，此后连续4次当选。2000年7月被选为工社党总书记。2004年4月出任首相。
⑦ 有关西班牙的英语简单介绍
Etymology: The true origins of the name Espa
⑧ 西班牙英语怎么写
你好，西班牙的英文是Spain
Spanish 西班牙语，西班牙人
⑨ 英语介绍西班牙..急求
Spanish Cuisine:The Spanish have never acquired the international reputation for haute cuisine enjoyed by their French neighbours. And millions of foreign tourists who flock to Spain’ costas each summer find their menu options at best limited and at worst swimming in garlic!
In fact many overseas visitors never sample a taste of the “real Spain” because the most popular coastal areas have been saturated with fast food joints and international restaurants.
To savour the truly wonderful world of Spanish food it’s essential to venture beyond the seaside tourist traps and follow the example of the Spaniards. Food is far more than a way of keeping body and soul together in Spain – it’s an entire experience and the focal point of the Spanish way of life.
Influences on Spanish Food
Spanish food reflects this vast country’s turbulent history, diverse geography and Mediterranean culture. Centuries of occupation by the Moors, who were the first to cultivate olives and oranges in Spain, made a huge impact on the Spanish diet as did decades of extreme poverty suffered by millions under Franco’s repressive regime.
You can taste the Moorish influence in the huge variety of Spanish dishes flavoured with cumin, saffron and other exotic spices. The sumptuous soups and stews which you’ll find all over Spain today were the staple diet of peasant communities, surviving on home grown vegetables and meat bones stewed for hours to eke out very ounce of flavour (just like grandma used to make!)
Paella - the most famous Spanish food
It was the poor peasant people of the Valencian region who invented Spain’s most famous dish, paella. The original recipe combined home grown veg (usually green and broad beans) with off cuts of rabbit and the short grain rice mass proced around the city of Valencia thanks to the sophisticated irrigation system introced by the Moors. Even today this is the traditional Valencian paella which you’ll find in thousands of towns, villages and isolated mountain pueblos throughout the region. It’s cheap, full of flavour and filling which were the three ingredients most sought after by those struggling to survive in the dire days ring and after the Spanish Civil War. This kind of paella is a far cry from the exotic dishes you’ll find down at the seafront where chefs throw in an abundance of mussels, clams, langoustines and other pricey trimmings designed to tempt tourists with plenty of money to spend.
No matter where you are in Spain, as a general rule of thumb you’ll get tastier food for far less money if you eat where the Spanish eat and follow them along to the street markets which are a treasure trove of fresh, cheap and high quality local proce.
Spain is the second largest country in western Europe and there are many regional variations in terms of the local cuisine. But the national diet is characterised by a reliance on olive oil for cooking and flavouring and a passion for all kinds of fish. Spanish workmen eat octopus washed down with a brandy or glass of red wine for breakfast and toddlers happily tuck into a plate of snails or clams at any time of day (can you imagine a British kid?!)
Food in Andalucia
The Costa del Sol is famed for its grilled sardines, barbecued on the beach in the summer months, whilst wider Andalucia brought us Gazpacho (chilled tomato soup) and the delightful habit of serving tapas with every drink. Traditionally a tapa, which means cover in Spanish, was served free with a drink – maybe a morsel of dried ham, manchego cheese or tortilla. The snack was placed on the small plate used to cover the drink to keep away flies. In most tourist centres these days you have to pay for your tapas but they’re still served free in many inland areas of Andalucia and elsewhere around the country.
Galicia, in the north west corner of Spain, is the place to visit for some of the finest fresh fish in the world. And in many regions where the numbers of pigs and sheep outnumber people, you’ll find a heavy reliance on pork and lamb dishes. Pork is the most widely eaten meat in Spain – partly because the Moors refused to eat it so cooking with pork became almost a part of the Christian religion!
An exciting way of exploring Spanish food and wine is through culinary tours in Spain. You can find all sorts of them, from wine tasting in Rioja to tapas tours in cities like Madrid and Barcelona, as well as cooking lessons in emblematic places and olive oil or serrano ham routes.
Choose an area in Spain to read more about different types of spanish food.
⑩ 求一篇介绍西班牙的英文文章 词汇简单点的
Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España, short form: España[1]), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two small exclaves in North Africa (both bordering Morocco). Spain is a democracy which is organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is a developed country with the ninth-largest economy in the world.[2] It is the largest of the three sovereign nations that make up the Iberian Peninsula—the others are Portugal and the microstate of Andorra.
To the west and to the south of Galicia, Spain borders Portugal. To the south, it borders Gibraltar (belonging to the UK) and, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), Morocco. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, the "rocks" (peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. In the northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.
The term Spain (España in Spanish) comes from the name as the Romans knew it in Latin: Hispania.
The earliest records of hominids living in Europe to date has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca which has become a key site for world Paleontology e to the importance of the fossils found there, dated roughly 1,000,000 years ago.
Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The more conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish Altamira (cave), which were done ca. 15,000 BCE and are regarded, along with those in Lascaux, France, as paramount instances of cave art.
The earliest urban culture documented is that of the semi-mythical southern city of Tartessos, pre- 1100 BCE. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 9th century BCE the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BCE the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling first with the Greeks and shortly after with the Romans for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).
The native peoples which the Romans met at the time of their invasion in what is now known as Spain were the Iberians, inhabiting from the Southwest part of the Peninsula through the Northeast part of it, and then the Celts, mostly inhabiting the north and northwest part of the Peninsula. In the inner part of the peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, the one known as Celtiberian.
[edit] Roman Empire and Germanic Invasions
Main article: Hispania
Roman bridge in CordobaThe Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula ring the Second Punic war in the 2nd century BCE, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the tenacious Celtic and Iberian tribes (from whom they copied the short sword known as falcata). These, along with the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian coastal colonies, became the province of Hispania. It was divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior ring the late Roman Republic; and, ring the Roman Empire, Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania (province with capital in the city of Emerita Augusta) in the southwest.
Hispania supplied Rome with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial, Quintilian and Lucan were born in Spain. The Spanish Bishops held the Council at Elvira in 306. The collapse of the Western Roman empire did not lead to the same wholesale destruction of Western classical society as happened in areas like Britain, Gaul and Germania Inferior ring the Dark Ages, even if the institutions, infrastructure and economy did suffer considerable degradation. Spain's present languages, its religion, and the basis of its laws originate from this period. The centuries of uninterrupted Roman rule and settlement left a deep and enring imprint upon the culture of Spain.
The first hordes of Barbarians to invade Hispania arrived in the 5th century, as the Roman empire decayed. The tribes of Goths, Visigoths, Swebians (Suebi), Alans, Asdings and Vandals, arrived to Spain by crossing the Pyrenees mountain range. They were all of Germanic origin. This led to the establishment of the Swebian Kingdom in Gallaecia, in the northwest, and the Visigothic Kingdom elsewhere. (For a while, the Germans lived under their law while the much more numerous Spaniards continued more or less to live under Roman law.) The Visigothic Kingdom eventually encompassed the entire Iberian Peninsula with the Roman Catholic conversion of the Goth monarchs. The famous horseshoe arch, which was adapted and perfected by the later Muslim era builders was in fact originally an example of Visigothic art.
[edit] Muslim Iberia
Main article: Al-Andalus
In the 8th century, nearly all the Iberian peninsula, which had been under Visigothic rule, was quickly conquered (711–718), by mainly Berber Muslims (see Moors), who had crossed over from North Africa, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad. Visigothic Spain was the last of a series of lands conquered in a great westward charge by the Islamically inspired armies of the Umayyad empire. Indeed they continued northwards until they were defeated in central France at the Battle of Tours in 732. Astonishingly the invasion started off as an invitation from a Visigoth faction within Spain for support. But instead the Moorish army, having defeated King Roderic proceeded to conquer the peninsula for itself. The Roman Catholic populace, unimpressed with the constant internal feuding of the Visigothic leaders, often stood apart from the fighting, often welcoming the new rulers, thereby forging the basis of the distinctly Spanish-Muslim culture of Al-Andalus. Only three small counties in the mountains of the north of Spain managed to cling to their independence: Asturias, Navarra and Aragon, which eventually became kingdoms.
The Age of the Islamic EmpireThe Muslim emirate proved strong in its first three centuries; stopping Charlemagne's massive forces at Saragossa and, after a serious Viking attack, established effective defences. Indeed it became a terror in its own right to Christian neighbours, with its "al-jihad fil-bahr" (holy war at sea). Christian Spain struck back from its mountain redoubts by seizing the lands north of the Duero river, and the Franks were able to seize Barcelona (801) and the Spanish Marches), but save for these and some other small incursions in the north, the Christians were unable to make headway against the superior forces of Al-Andalus for several centuries. It was only in the 11th century that the break up of Al-Andalus led to the creation of the Taifa kingdoms, who attempted to outshine each other in art and culture and were often at war, became vulnerable to the consolidating power of Spain's Christian kingdoms.
The Moorish capital was Có, in southern Spain. During this time large populations of Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in close quarters, and at its peak some non-Muslims were appointed to high offices under the some of the more lenient Muslim rulers. At its best it proced exquisite architecture and art, and Muslim and Jewish scholars played a major part in reviving the tradition of classical Greek philosophy, mathematics and science in western Europe, whilst making their own contributions to it. However, there were restrictions on non-Muslims that grew after the death of Al-Hakam II in 976. Later invasions of stricter Muslim groups led to persecutions of non-Muslims, forcing some (including Muslim scholars) to seek safety in the then still relatively tolerant city of Toledo after its Christian reconquest in 1085.
Interior of the Mezquita in Córdoba, a Muslim mosque.Spanish society under Muslim rule became increasingly complex, partly because Islamic conquest did not involve the systematic conversion of the much larger conquered population to Islam. At the same time, Christians and Jews were recognized under Islam as "peoples of the book", and so given dhimmi status. Most importantly, the Islamic Berber and Arab invaders were a small minority, ruling over several million Christians. Thus, Christians and Jews were free to practise their religion, but faced certain restrictions and financial burdens. Conversion to Islam proceeded at a steadily increasing pace, as it offered social and economic and political advantages. Merchants, nobles, large landowners, and other local elites were usually among the first to convert. By the 11th century Muslims are believed to have outnumbered Christians in Al-Andalus.
The Muslim community in Spain was itself diverse and beset by social tensions. From the beginning, the Berber people of North Africa had provided the bulk of the armies, clashed with the Arab leadership from the Middle East. The Berbers, who were comparatively recent converts to Islam, resented the aristocratic pretensions of the Arab elite. They soon gave up attempting to settle the harsh lands of the north of the Meseta Central handed to them by the Arab rulers, and many returned to Africa ring a Berber uprising against Arab rule. However, the Berbers later took over power and Muslim Spain fell under the rule of the Almoravid and then the Almohad dynasties, amongst others. Over time the relatively tiny number of Moors graally increased with immigration and cross marriages. Large Moorish populations grew, most notably in the south in the Guadalquivir river valley, and in the east, along the fertile Mediterranean coastal plain and in the Ebro river valley.
Muslim Spain was wealthy and sophisticated under Islamic rule. Cordoba was the richest and most sophisticated city in all of western Europe. It was not until the 12th century that western medieval Christiandom began to reach comparable levels of sophistication, and this was e in part to the stimulus coming from Muslim Spain. Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange flourished. Muslims imported a rich intellectual tradition from the Middle East and North Africa, including knowledge of mathematics and science, that they helped revive. Crops and farming techniques introced by the Arabs, led to a remarkable expansion of agriculture, which had been in decline since Roman times. In towns and cities magnificent mosques, palaces, and other monuments were constructed. Outside the cities, the mixture of large estates and small farms that existed in Roman times remained largely intact because Muslim leaders rarely dispossessed landowners. The Muslim conquerors were relatively few in number and so they tried to maintain good relations with their subjects. This relative social peace, which was already deteriorating from the late 10th century, broke down with the later, stricter, Muslim sects.
Roman, Jewish, and Muslim culture interacted in complex ways. A large part of the population graally adopted Arabic. Arabic was the official language of government. Even Jews and Christians often spoke Arabic, while Hebrew and Latin were frequently written in Arabic script. These diverse traditions interchanged in ways that gave Spanish culture — religion, literature, music, art and architecture, and writing systems - a rich and distinctive heritage. However, as the 11th century drew to a close most of the north and centre of Spain was back under Christian control.
[edit] Fall of Muslim rule and Unification
Main article: Reconquista
Equal partners: Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of CastileThe long period of expansion of the Christian kingdoms, beginning in 722 with the Muslim defeat in the battle of Covadonga and the creation of the Christian kingdom of Asturias, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion, is called the Reconquista. As early as 739 Muslim forces were driven out of Galicia, which came to host one of Christianity's holiest sites, Santiago de Compostela. Areas in the northern mountains and around Barcelona were soon captured by Frankish and local forces, providing a base for Spain's Christians. The 1085 conquest of the central city of Toledo largely completed the reconquest of the northern half of Spain.
In 1086 the Almoravids, an ascetic Islamic sect from North Africa, conquered the divided small Moorish states in the south and launched an invasion in which they captured the east coast as far north as Saragossa. By the middle of the 12th century the Almoravid empire had disintegrated. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 heralded the collapse of the great Moorish strongholds in the south, most notably Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248. Within a few years of this nearly the whole of the Iberian peninsula had been reconquered, leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a small tributary state in the south. Surrounded by Christian Castile but afraid of another invasion from Muslim northern Africa, it clung tenaciously to its isolated mountain splendour for two and half centuries. It came to an end in 1492 when Isabella and Ferdinand captured the southern city of Granada, the last Moorish city in Spain. The Treaty of Granada[3] guaranteed religious tolerance toward Muslims while Spain's Jewish population of over 200,000 people was expelled that year. At Ferdinand's urging the Spanish Inquisition had been established in 1478. With a history of being invaded by three Islamic empires (Ummayad, Almoravid and Almohad), there was a fear that Muslims might assist yet another invasion. Also, Aragonese labourers were angered by landlords' use of Moorish workers to undercut them. A 1499 Muslim uprising, triggered by forced conversions, was crushed and was followed by the first of the expulsions of Muslims, in 1502. The year 1492 was also marked by the discovery of the New World. Isabella I funded the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Ferdinand and Isabella, as exemplars of the Renaissance New Monarchs, consolidated the modernization of their respective economies that had been pursued by their predecessors and enforced reforms that weakened the position of the great magnates against the new centralized crowns. In their contests with the French army in the Italian Wars, Spanish forces under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba eventually achieved success, against the French knights, thereby revolutionizing warfare. The combined Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, long vibrant and expansive, emerged as a European great power.
The reconquest from the Muslims is one of the most significant events in Spanish history since the fall of the Roman Empire. Arabic quickly lost its place in southern Spain's life, and was replaced by Castilian. The process of religious conversion which started with the arrival of the moors was reversed from the mid 13th century as the Reconquista was advancing south: as this happened the Muslim population either fled or forcefully converted into Catholicism, mosques and synagogues were converted into churches.
With the union of Castile and Aragón in 1479 and the subsequent conquest of Granada in 1492 and Navarre in 1512, the word Spain (España, in Spanish) began being used only to refer to the new unified kingdom and not to the whole of Hispania (the term Hispania (from which España was originally derived) is Latin and the term Iberia Greek).
[edit] From the Renaissance to the nineteenth century
Main article: Habsburg Spain
Main article: Enlightenment Spain
Until the late fifteenth century, Castile and León, Aragón and Navarre were independent states, with independent languages, monarchs, armies and, in the case of Aragon and Castile, two empires: the former with one in the Mediterranean and the latter with a new, rapidly growing, one in the Americas. The process of political unification continued into the early 16th century. It was the unification of these separate Iberian empires that became the base of what is now referred to as the Spanish Empire.