Spain

Spain is more mountainous than many visitors expect. Its centre is the Meseta, a high, dry tableland drained westwards by the Douro, the Tagus and the Guadiana. The Pyrenees close off the north-east, the Cantabrian Mountains shelter a green, rainy coast from Galicia to the Basque Country, and the Sierra Nevada rises above Andalusia. Offshore lie the Balearics and the volcanic Canaries, where Mount Teide on Tenerife is Spain’s highest point.

Carthaginians and Greeks traded along these coasts before Rome made Hispania one of its richest provinces. Muslim armies crossed from North Africa in 711, and al-Andalus, centred on Córdoba, became a meeting place of Islamic, Jewish and Christian learning. The northern Christian kingdoms pushed south until Granada fell in 1492, the year Columbus sailed west and Spain’s Jews were expelled. An empire in the Americas and the Philippines followed. After the civil war of 1936–39 and Franco’s long dictatorship, the 1978 constitution made Spain a parliamentary monarchy.

Regions matter: Catalan, Galician and Basque are spoken alongside Spanish, and each region guards its own festivals, from Valencia’s Fallas bonfires to the bull runs of Pamplona. Lunch is the main meal, and dinner rarely starts before nine. Velázquez, Goya and Picasso changed European painting. Tourism carries much of the economy, but Spain also grows olives, citrus and wine grapes on an enormous scale, builds cars and trains, and has covered its plains with wind and solar farms.