page_title: National and regional identity in Spain
section_title: Reconquista: Rise of the Christian states
hierarchical_section_title: National and regional identity in Spain / Aspects of unity and diversity within Spain / Historical / Reconquista: Rise of the Christian states
caption_attribution_description: English: This map show Al-Andalus (Almohades) and European Christian kingdoms. 12th-13th centuries. It´s made from "The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1926".
context_page_description: Both the perceived nationhood of Spain, and the perceived distinctions between different parts of its territory are said to derive from historical, geographical, linguistic, economic, political, ethnic and social factors.
  Present-day Spain was formed in the wake of the expansion of the Christian states in northern Spain, a process known as the Reconquista. The Reconquista, ending with the Fall of Granada in 1492, was followed by a contested process of religious and linguistic unification and political centralisation, which began under the Catholic Monarchs and continued intermittently into the 20th century. Peripheral nationalism in its modern form arose chiefly in Cuba, Catalonia and the Basque Country during the 19th century. The modern division of Spain into Autonomous Communities embodies an attempt to recognise nationalities and regional identities within Spain as a basis for devolution of power.
  From the Reconquista onwards, in most parts of the peninsula, territories have identified themselves as distinct from the rest of Spain in one of three ways.
context_section_description: In the mountainous, rural northern regions to the north, the Christian rulers were regaining their footing, despite numerous internal conflicts, and they slowly expanded their control throughout the Reconquista, between the Battle of Covadonga c. 720 CE and the Fall of Granada in 1492.
  During this period several independent Christian kingdoms and mostly independent political entities (Asturias, León, Galicia, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia) were formed by their own inhabitants' efforts under aristocratic leadership, coexisting with the Muslim Iberian states and having their own identities and borders. Portugal, formerly part of León, gained independence in 1128 after a split in the inheritance of the daughters of Alfonso VI and remained independent throughout the Reconquista.
  All these different kingdoms were ruled together, or separately in personal union, but maintained their particular ethnic differences, regardless of similarities through common origins or borrowed customs. These kingdoms sometimes collaborated when they fought against Al-Andalus and sometimes allied themselves with the Muslims against rival Christian neighbors.
caption: Spain in 1210
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