Claim: Spain is a country.

Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain that share a common Spanish culture and speak one of the national languages of Spain , including most numerously Spanish , as a primary language . Within Spain , there are a number of nationalisms and regionalisms , reflecting the country 's complex history and diverse culture . Although the official language of Spain is commonly known as `` Spanish '' , it is only one of the national languages of Spain , and is less ambiguously known as Castilian , a standard language based on the medieval romance speech of the early Kingdom of Castile in north-central Spain and the Mozarabic dialect of the Taifa of Toledo which was incorporated by the former in the 11th century . There are several commonly spoken regional languages , most notably Basque -LRB- a Paleohispanic language -RRB- , Catalan and Galician -LRB- both Romance languages like Castilian -RRB- . There are many populations outside Spain with ancestors who emigrated from Spain and who share a Hispanic culture ; most notably in Hispanic America .   The Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC . As a result of Roman colonization , the majority of local languages , with the exception of Basque , stem from the Vulgar Latin . The Germanic Vandals and Suebi , with part of the Iranian Alans under King Respendial conquered the peninsula in 409 AD . The Iberian Peninsula was conquered and brought under the rule of the Arab Umayyads in 711 and by the Berber North African dynasties the Almohads and the Almoravids in the 11th and 12th centuries . Following the eight century Reconquista , the modern Spanish state was formed with the union of the Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon , the conquest of the last Muslim kingdom of Granada and the Canary Islands in the late 15th century . In the early 16th century the Kingdom of Navarre was also conquered . As Spain expanded its empire in the America 's , religious minorities in Spain were either converted or expelled and the Catholic church fiercely persecuted heresy during a period known as the Spanish inquisition . In parallel , a wave of emigration began to the Americas began with over 16 million people emigrating to the Americas during the colonial period -LRB- 1492-1832 -RRB- . In the post-colonial period -LRB- 1850 -- 1950 -RRB- , a further 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas , particularly Argentina , Uruguay , Mexico , Brazil , Chile , Venezuela , Puerto Rico and Cuba . As a result , Spanish-descendants in Latin America number in the hundreds of millions .   Spain is home to one of the largest communities of Romani people -LRB- commonly known by the English exonym `` gypsies '' , Spanish : gitanos -RRB- . The Spanish Roma , which belong to the Iberian Kale subgroup -LRB- calé -RRB- , are a formerly-nomadic community , which spread across Western Asia , North Africa , and Europe , first reaching Spain in the 15th century . The population of Spain is becoming increasingly diverse due to recent immigration . 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 -LRB- after the USA -RRB- and immigrants now make up about 10 % of the population . Nevertheless , the prolonged economic crisis between 2008 and 2015 significantly reduced both immigration rates and the total number of foreigners in the country , Spain becoming once more a net emigrant country .