Kingdom of Spain

Spain (capital Madrid) and neighboring states. Spain's Canary Islands are not shown.

Wealth and National Well-Being

Country Comparisons:
2010: see chart
2010: debt and reserves chart

World Factbook: "Spain's mixed capitalist economy is the 12th largest in the world, and its per capita income roughly matches that of Germany and France. However, after almost 15 years of above average GDP growth, the Spanish economy began to slow in late 2007 and entered into a recession in the second quarter of 2008...The government oversaw a restructuring of the savings bank sector in 2010, and provided some $15 billion in capital to various institutions. Investors remain concerned that Madrid may need to bail out more troubled banks. The Bank of Spain, however, is seeking to boost confidence in the financial sector by pressuring banks to come clean about their losses and consolidate into stronger groups.

Spain's health system is described as similar to that of Britain. It's health figures are superior to those of the United States. For details on Spain's healthcare see Healthcare in Spain.

Unemployment rate
2010: 20%
2009: 18.1%

Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP
2005: 1.2%

People

Living in an urban area
2010: 77%

Migration
2011: More arriving than leaving. A net gain of 3.89 persons per 1,000 populatio.

Ethnicities
 17 percent Catalan, 7 percent Galician, and 2 percent Basque.

Spain is second only to Denmark in pork consumption.

Religion
Wikipedia, 2011: "Roman Catholicism has long been the main religion of Spain, and although it no longer has official status by law, in all public schools in Spain students have to choose either religion or ethics and Catholic is the only religion officially taught although in some schools there are large[citation needed] numbers of Muslim students together. According to a July 2009 study by the Spanish Center of Sociological Research about 73% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholics, 2.1% other faith, and about 22% identify with no religion among which 7.3% are atheists...But according to a December 2006 study, 48% of the population declared a belief in a supreme being, while 41% described themselves as atheist or agnostic. Altogether, about 22% of the entire Spanish population attends religious services at least once per month. never attend services. The New York Times reports, on April 19 2005, that 18 percent of Catholics attend mass weekly.

Geography

Southwestern Europe, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, Bay of Biscay, and Pyrenees Mountains; southwest of France

Government

Spain is a constitutional monarchy also described as a parliamentary monarchy. Capital: Madrid.

Recent History

November 22, 1975, two days after Francisco Franco's death, Juan Carlos becomes king. Some on the left associate Carlos with fascism and think he will not last long. Carlos will institute democratic reforms, become highly respected and a stabilizing influence on Spain. The Spanish monarchy becomes not unlike the monarchies of the Britain, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Denmark.

Summer, 2004: Spain has been a tourist destination second in popularity only to France. People from farther north enjoy is sun and beaches. But for the second summer season, tourism is down. This year, hotels along Spain's beaches are having 40 percent vacancies. One possible reason, people are doing it where it is cheaper -- in Croatia along the coast of the Adriatic Sea, Tunisia or Turkey.

In 2006 Spain is described as having fewer McDonald's restaurants per capita than a lot of nations: 6.8 McDonald's for every million people compared to 44 per million in the U.S., 35.5 per million in Australia, 28.3 per million in Japan and 18.5 per million in the UK.

BBC: 2010 February - Thousands of workers demonstrate against government spending cuts and plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 67