Early populations , a piece of
Iberian sculpture from the 4th century BC nobleman from the 1st century BC , born in Roman
Hispania (in
Italica near modern-day
Seville) The earliest modern humans inhabiting the region of Spain are believed to have been
Paleolithic peoples, who may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000–40,000 years ago. The
Iberians are believed to have arrived or emerged in the region as a culture between the
4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, settling initially along the Mediterranean coast. Then
Celts settled in Spain during the
Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, who had cultural contact with the Iberians, are called
Celtiberians. In addition, a group known as the
Tartessians and later
Turdetanians inhabited southwestern Spain. They are believed to have developed a separate culture influenced by
Phoenicia. The seafaring
Phoenicians,
Greeks, and
Carthaginians successively settled trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries. Interaction took place with Indigenous peoples. The
Second Punic War between the Carthaginians and
Romans was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal. The
Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, and established a series of
Latin-speaking provinces in the region. As a result of
Roman colonization, the majority of local languages, with the exception of
Basque, stem from the
Vulgar Latin that was spoken in
Hispania (Roman Iberia). A new group of
Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula including
Spanish, which eventually became the main language in Spain evolved from Roman expansion. Hispania emerged as an important part of the
Roman Empire and produced notable historical figures such as
Trajan,
Hadrian,
Seneca,
Martial,
Theodosius, and
Quintilian. The
Germanic Vandals and
Suebi, with
Iranian Alans under King
Respendial, arrived in the peninsula in 409 AD. Part of the Vandals with the remaining Alans, now under
Geiseric, removed to North Africa after a few conflicts with another Germanic tribe, the
Visigoths. The latter were established in
Toulouse and supported Roman campaigns against the Vandals and Alans in 415–19 AD. The Visigoths became the dominant power in Iberia and reigned for three centuries. They were highly
romanized in the eastern Empire and already Christians, so they became fully integrated into the late Iberian-Roman culture. The
Suebi were another Germanic tribe in the west of the peninsula; some sources said that they became established as
federates of the Roman Empire in the old Northwestern Roman province of
Gallaecia (roughly, present-day
northern Portugal and
Galicia). But they were largely independent and raided neighboring provinces to expand their political control over ever-larger portions of the southwest after the Vandals and Alans left. They created a totally independent
Suebic Kingdom. In 447 AD they converted to Roman Catholicism under King
Rechila. After being checked and reduced in 456 AD by the Visigoths, the Suebic Kingdom survived to 585 AD. It was decimated as an independent political unit by the Visigoths, after having been involved in the internal affairs of their kingdom.
Middle Ages After two centuries of domination by the
Visigothic Kingdom, the
Iberian Peninsula was
invaded by a Muslim force under
Tariq Bin Ziyad in 711. This army consisted mainly of ethnic
Berbers from the Ghomara tribe, who were reinforced by
Arabs from
Syria once the conquest was complete. Only a remote mountainous area in the far north retained independence, eventually developing as the Christian
Kingdom of Asturias. Muslim Iberia became part of the Umayyad Caliphate and would be known as
Al-Andalus. The Berbers of Al Andalus revolted as early as 740 AD, halting Arab expansion across the
Pyrenee Mountains into France. Upon the collapse of the
Umayyad in
Damascus, Spain was seized by
Yusuf al Fihri. The exiled Umayyad Prince
Abd al-Rahman I next seized power, establishing himself as Emir of
Cordoba.
Abd al Rahman III, his grandson, proclaimed a
Caliphate in 929, marking the beginning of the Golden Age of Al Andalus. This policy was the effective power of the peninsula and Western North Africa; it competed with the
Shiite rulers of
Tunis and frequently raided the small Christian kingdoms in the North. The
Caliphate of Córdoba effectively collapsed during a ruinous civil war between 1009 and 1013; it was not finally abolished until 1031, when al-Andalus broke up into a number of mostly independent mini-states and principalities called
taifas. These were generally too weak to defend themselves against repeated raids and demands for tribute from the Christian states to the north and west, which were known to the Muslims as "the Galician nations". These had expanded from their initial strongholds in Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque country, and the Carolingian Marca Hispanica to become the Kingdoms of Navarre, León, Portugal, Castile and Aragon, and the County of Barcelona. Eventually they began to conquer territory, and the Taifa kings asked for help from the Almoravids, Muslim Berber rulers of the
Maghreb. But the
Almoravids went on to conquer and annex all the Taifa kingdoms. In 1086 the Almoravid ruler of Morocco,
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, was invited by the Muslim princes in Iberia to defend them against
Alfonso VI, King of Castile and León. In that year, Tashfin crossed the straits to Algeciras and inflicted defeat on the Christian army at the
Battle of Sagrajas. By 1094, Yusuf ibn Tashfin had removed all Muslim princes in Iberia and had annexed their states, except for the one at Zaragoza. He also regained
Valencia from the Christians. About this time a massive process of conversion to
Islam took place, and Muslims comprised the majority of the population in Spain by the end of the 11th century. The Almoravids were succeeded by the
Almohads, another
Berber dynasty, after the victory of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur over the Castilian Alfonso VIII at the
Battle of Alarcos in 1195. In 1212 a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of the Castilian Alfonso VIII defeated the Almohads at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. But the Almohads continued to rule Al-Andalus for another decade, though with much reduced power and prestige. The civil wars following the death of Abu Ya'qub Yusuf II rapidly led to the re-establishment of taifas. The taifas, newly independent but weakened, were quickly conquered by the kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon. After the fall of Murcia (1243) and the Algarve (1249), only the
Emirate of Granada survived as a Muslim state, tributary of Castile until 1492. In 1469 the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile signaled a joining of forces to attack and conquer the Emirate of Granada. The King and Queen convinced the
Pope to declare their war a
crusade. The Christians were successful and finally, in January 1492, after a long siege, the Moorish sultan
Muhammad XI surrendered the fortress palace, the renowned
Alhambra. Spain
conquered the Canary Islands between 1402 and 1496. Their indigenous Berber population, the
Guanches, were gradually absorbed by intermarrying with Spanish settlers. Spanish conquest of the Iberian part of Navarre was begun by Ferdinand II of Aragon and completed by Charles V. The series of military campaigns extended from 1512 to 1524, while the war lasted until 1528 in the Navarre to the north of the Pyrenees. Between 1568 and 1571, Charles V armies fought and defeated a general insurrection of the Muslims of the mountains of Granada. Charles V then ordered the expulsion of up to 80,000 Granadans from the province and their dispersal throughout Spain. The union of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon as well as the conquest of
Granada, Navarre and the Canary Islands led to the formation of the Spanish state as known today. This allowed for the development of a Spanish identity based on the Spanish language and a local form of Catholicism. This gradually developed in a territory that remained culturally, linguistically and religiously very diverse. A majority of Jews were forcibly
converted to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th centuries and those remaining were expelled from Spain in 1492. The open practice of Islam by Spain's sizeable
Mudejar population was similarly outlawed. Furthermore, between 1609 and 1614, a significant number of
Moriscos— (Muslims who had been baptized Catholic) were
expelled by royal decree. Although initial estimates of the number of Moriscos expelled such as those of Henri Lapeyre reach 300,000 moriscos (or 4% of the total Spanish population), the extent and severity of the expulsion has been increasingly challenged by modern historians. Nevertheless, the eastern region of Valencia, where ethnic tensions were highest, was particularly affected by the expulsion, suffering economic collapse and depopulation of much of its territory. The Islamic legacy in Spain has been long lasting, and among many others, accounts for two of the eight
masterpieces of
Islamic architecture from around the world: the
Alhambra of Granada and the
Cordoba Mosque; the
Palmeral of Elche is listed as a
World Heritage Site due to its uniqueness. Those who avoided expulsion or who managed to return to Spain merged into the dominant culture. The last mass prosecution against Moriscos for
crypto-Islamic practices took place in Granada in 1727, with most of those convicted receiving relatively light sentences. By the end of the 18th century, Indigenous Islam and Morisco identity were considered to have been extinguished in Spain.
Colonialism and emigration In the 16th century, following the military conquest of most of the new continent, perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. It is estimated that during the colonial period (1492–1832), a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas and a further 3.5 million immigrated during the post-colonial era (1850–1950); the estimate is 250,000 in the 16th century, and most during the 18th century as immigration was encouraged by the new Bourbon Dynasty. After the conquest of
Mexico and
Peru these two regions became the principal destinations of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. In the period 1850–1950, 3.5 million Spanish left for
the Americas, particularly
Argentina,
Uruguay,
Mexico,
Brazil,
Chile,
Venezuela, and
Cuba. 94,000 Spaniards chose to go to
Algeria in the last years of the 19th century, and 250,000 Spaniards lived in
Morocco at the beginning of the 20th century. From 1961 to 1974, at the height of the
guest worker in Western Europe, about 100,000 Spaniards emigrated each year. The nation has formally apologized to expelled Jews and since 2015 offers the chance for people to reclaim Spanish citizenship. By 2019, over 132,000
Sephardic Jewish descendants had reclaimed Spanish citizenship. The population of Spain has become more diverse due to immigration of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. From 2000 to 2010, Spain had among the highest per capita immigration rates in the world and the second-highest absolute net migration in the world (after the
United States). Immigrants now make up about 10% of the population. But Spain's prolonged economic crisis between 2008 and 2015 reduced economic opportunities, and both immigration rates and the total number of foreigners in the country declined. By the end of this period, Spain was becoming a net emigrant country. ==Ancestry==