Spain is a sovereign state and a member state of the European Union. It is located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of three countries (Morocco, France) to have both Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines. Spain's 1,214 km (754 mi) border with Portugal is the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union.
Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco, plus Alborán, Chafarinas Islands,Alhucemas, Vélez de la Gomera and other small islets including Perejil. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 505,992 km2 (195,365 sq mi), Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe.
Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian peninsula around 35,000 years ago. It came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania. In the Middle Ages it was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors to the south. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century, following the marriage of theCatholic Monarchs and the completion of the centuries-long reconquest, or Reconquista, of the peninsula from the Moors in 1492. Spain became an influential global empire in the early modern period, being one of the first countries to colonize the New World and leaving a legacy of over 500 million Spanish speakers today, making it the world's second most spoken first language.
Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a developed country with the thirteenth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP. Spain also has high living standards with the tenth-highestquality of life index rating in the world as of 2005. It is a member of the United Nations,NATO, OECD, and WTO.
or count (Hungarian: ispán, Latin: comes or comes parochialis, and Slovak: župan) was the leader of a castle district (a fortress and the royal lands attached to it) in the Kingdom of Hungary from the early 11th century. Most of them were also heads of the basic administrative units of the kingdom, called counties, and from the 13th century the latter function became dominant. The ispáns were appointed and dismissed by either themonarchs or a high ranking royal official responsible for the administration of a larger territorial unit within the kingdom. They fulfilled administrative, judicial and military functions in one or more counties.
Heads of counties were often represented locally by their deputies, the vice-ispáns (Hungarian: alispán, Latin: vicecomes and Slovak: podžupan) from the 13th century. Although the vice-ispáns took over more and more functions from their principals, the ispánsor rather, according to their new title, the lord-lieutenants of counties (Hungarian:főispán, Latin: supremus comes) remained the leading officials of county administration. The heads of two counties, Pozsony and Temes were even included among the "barons of the realm", along with the palatine and other dignitaries. On the other hand, some of these high ranking officials and some of the prelates were ex officio ispáns of certain counties, including Esztergom, Fehér and Pest until the 18th or 19th centuries. Between the middle of the 15th century and the 18th century, neither was unusual an other type of perpetual ispánate, namely the group of counties where the office of ispán was hereditary in noble families.
Election of the vice-ispáns by the assembly of the counties was enacted in 1723, although the noblemen could only choose among four candidates presented by the lord-lieutenant. Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, vice-ispáns officially took over the responsibility for the management of the whole county administration, but lord-lieutenants presided the most important representative or supervising bodies of the counties. Both offices were abolished with the introduction of the Soviet system of local administration in Hungary in 1950.
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