The vast majority of the population is Roman Catholic, yet for many—and especially for those born after 1950—this has little meaning beyond being baptized, married, and buried within the church. There are several hundred thousand non-Catholic Christians in Spain. American-based denominations such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists as well as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have been active in the country since the 1970s. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of adherents of Islam, whose numbers have grown rapidly because of immigration. Some 100,000 Jews fled Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century, when the inquisitor general Tomás de Torquemada persuaded the country’s rulers to expel any Jew who refused to be baptized. To remain in the country, many Jews converted to Christianity (becoming known as conversos); those known as Marranos converted to Christianity but continued surreptitiously to practice Judaism. Restrictions on Judaism were eased only in the 20th century, and by the early 21st century there were some 15,000 Jews in Spain. Adrian Shubert Vicente Rodriguez Settlement patterns Human landscape
The impact on the Spanish landscape of some 35,000 years of human occupation has been both diverse and profound. Human activity in prehistoric times undoubtedly led to changes in vegetation, soils, microrelief, and microclimate. However, influences from northern Europe (Celtic), the eastern Mediterranean (Phoenician, Ligurian, and eventually Roman), and North Africa (Iberian) contributed more obviously to what was to become the “traditional landscape” of Spain. Thus, most of Spain’s major towns have ancient origins: they began as Celtiberian settlements (Soria); as Phoenician colonies (Cádiz) and Phoenician or Greek trading emporiums (Tarragona, Ampurias, and Málaga); and as Roman commercial centres along the Mediterranean coast or military and administrative centres in the north and west, at nodal points in the road system (Mérida, León, and Zaragoza [Saragossa]). Such towns were surrounded by zones of intensive, irrigated agriculture (the barros of Évora, Portugal, the vegas of Mérida and Zaragoza, the huertas of the east coast).
Old northwest section of Almería, Spain.Richard Wilkie/Black Star
The Roman legacy of a gridiron town plan is preserved in many northern centres (e.g., in Barcelona and Zaragoza) but has been largely obliterated in the cities of the south and east by Muslim urban elements. In towns such as Valencia, Córdoba (Cordova), Toledo, Almería, Granada, and Sevilla (Seville), the marketplace, mosque, and high-walled domestic compounds, often with watered gardens, dominate an intricate alley network. Like their Roman antecedents, these early medieval Muslim centres were surrounded by rich agricultural huertas; in both towns and huertas water usage was rigorously controlled by institutions such as the Tribunal de las Aguas de la Vega de Valencia.
Alley in Toledo, Spain.© Digital Vision/Getty Images
After the Reconquista (Reconquest), the establishment of isolated single farms (alquerías) within the huertas increased. In Castile and León, medieval urban settlement developed from Christian military foundations in an open landscape of extensive dry farming. Centres such as Pamplona, Burgos, Soria, Valladolid, and Salamanca comprised a series of walled nuclei until new squares and broad streets were laid out in the 17th century. Rural settlement in León and in the mountains of northern Andalusia focused on the ecclesiastical granges of the Reconquista, developing into small villages. In Castile and León, castles similarly gave rise to clusters of hamlets. Much of this rural settlement was the result of spontaneous peasant colonization based on a now largely lost communal farming (open-field) system. In contrast, in Castile–La Mancha (Castilla–La Mancha), lower Aragon, Andalusia, Extremadura, and parts of the Alentejo, Portugal, the rural settlement pattern testifies to the more-organized resettlement schemes of the Reconquista in the southern Meseta. Here the four great Christian military orders (the Hospitallers, the Templars, the Order of Santiago, and the Order of Calatrava) acquired vast territories, which they defended with fortresses and huge, widely spaced villages, the latter sometimes now so large as to take on an urban aspect (agrotowns). Among these, in parts of Andalusia and Alentejo, are the courtyard farms (cortijos, montes) of the latifundios (very large estates). Catherine Delano Smith Vicente Rodriguez Migration
Spaniards participated fully in the massive 19th- and early 20th-century European immigration to the Americas. Between 1846 and 1932 nearly five million Spaniards went to the Americas, mostly to South America in general and to Argentina and Brazil in particular. Only Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany had more emigrants. Significant numbers of Spaniards also immigrated to Algeria and France.
The pattern of Spanish emigration changed after World War II. Continental Europe, especially France, West Germany, and Switzerland, displaced Latin America as the favoured destination for Spanish emigrants. Between 1962 and 1976 almost two million Spaniards, mainly from Andalusia and Galicia, went to other European countries. Beginning in the 1980s, however, as the Spanish economy improved, there was very little permanent emigration from Spain. Indeed, there was a reverse in migration flows as more than 20,000 Spanish citizens, many of them retired, returned from other European countries each year. This tide turned again in the early 21st century as Spain’s economy soured, and by 2012 the unemployment rate had topped 25 percent. More than half of Spaniards under age 25 were unable to find work, and recent university graduates increasingly looked abroad for opportunities.
The number of emigrants has been dwarfed by the number of people moving within Spain itself. Almost 10 million Spaniards moved from one province to another between the early 1970s and mid-1990s, significantly affecting the distribution of population within the country. Until the mid-1970s, most internal migrants left rural areas seeking industrial jobs in the larger cities, especially Madrid and Barcelona, and in the Basque Country and Valencia. During the 1980s the decline of Spain’s traditional industries prompted a return migration to the less-industrialized provinces. In the 1990s the focal points for migration were medium-sized cities (with 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants), regions with strong service sectors, and the fringes of large and medium metropolitan areas. Urbanization
During the first half of the 20th century, most Spaniards lived in villages or in towns of fewer than 10,000 people, but by the early 21st century more than three-fourths of the population lived in urban areas. The most intense growth took place in a handful of the largest cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Málaga, and Murcia. Spanish cities recorded some of the highest population densities in the Western world. This explosive urban growth occurred with very little planning, and many migrants to the cities could find housing only in cheaply constructed apartment blocks in outlying districts that lacked adequate municipal services.
Spain: Urban-ruralEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.