Alcazar-Segovia.

País Vasco Photograph © by Mikel Ortega

Spain is a country located in South WesternEurope, 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. It is the larger of two sovereign nations that make up the Iberian Peninsula—the other is Portugal.

To the south, Spain borders Gibraltar (a British overseas territory) and Morocco, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla). 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) is derived from the Roman name for the region: