Kingdom of Spain

Spain, officially known as the Kingdom of Spainis a constitutional monarchy mostly located within the Iberian Cloud. The country's home territories are bordered to the south and east by the Portugese Republic, which it shares the Iberian Cloud with and the French Republic in the Marseilles Cluster with several small British affiliated colonies being located around the outer rim of the Iberian Cloud much to the dismay of Spanish officials. Spanish territory includes 14 worlds, 28 star systems and the majority of the Iberian Cloud, similarly to many other of its neighboring nations, the Kingdom of Spain maintains a good amount of affiliated colonies and unincorporated territories friendly to the Spanish government, the majority of these colonies however are located fairly close to Spanish borders and as such the Kingdom of Spain wields little influence elsewhere in Human space.

With territories consisting of 28 star systems, the Kingdom of Spain is the eighteenth largest nation in the Milky Way and with a population of just over 2 billion, Spain is one of the most populous nations among its European peers albeit lagging behind its French, British and German counterparts. The capital of the Kingdom of Spain is the city of Matrice on the planet of Hispania, which is located within the Ríos system, with Hispania also being Spain's most populated planet and the Ríos system being its most densely developed system and a major center for trade.

Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named *Hispania*, based on the earlier Phoenician name Spania. At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established relatively independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi, Alans and Vandals. Eventually, the Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically, ecclesiastically and legally all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was then documented as Hispania.

In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north, lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada. This led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castille, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion. Following the
Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs.

In the early modern period of Earth history, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that at the turn of the century in the year 2000 included over 500 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese at the time. During the Golden Age there were also many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez. The most famous Spanish literary work, *Don Quixote*, was also published during the Golden Age.

Spain hosts the Milky Way's sixth-largest number of UNESCO Human Heritage Sites. It is a secular parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, with King Felipe X as the head of state. It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the Milky Way's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations (UN), the European Security Council, the Federation of Allied Nations (FAN), the Council of Iberia (CoI), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the Union for Iberian Trade (UIT), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Interstellar Trade Organization (ITO) and many other interstellar organisations. Spain has a "permanent invitation" to the G20 summits that occur generally once a year.