SPAIN



Spain 1762
Photo by:  Narcis Parfenti

Kingdom of Spain

España

CAPITAL : Madrid

FLAG : The national flag, adopted in 1785, consists of three horizontal stripes: a yellow one—equal in size to the other two combined—between two red ones, with the coat of arms on the yellow stripe.

ANTHEM : Marcha Real Granadera (March of the Royal Grenadier).

MONETARY UNIT : The peseta was replaced by the euro as official currency as of 2002. The euro is divided into 100 cents. There are coins in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents and 1 euro and 2 euros. There are notes of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 euros. As of May 2003, €1 = $1.0977 (or $1 = €0.911).

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES : The metric system is the legal standard.

HOLIDAYS : New Year's Day, 1 January; St. Joseph's Day, 19 March; Epiphany, 31 March; Day of St. Joseph the Artisan, 1 May; St. James's Day, 25 July; Assumption, 15 August; National Day and Hispanic Day, 12 October; All Saints' Day, 1 November; Immaculate Conception, 8 December; Christmas, 25 December. Movable religious holidays include Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and Corpus Christi.

TIME : 1 PM = noon GMT.


CUSTOMS AND DUTIES

Spain, a member of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, adheres to EU and GATT trading rules. Spain determines customs duties based on cost, insurance, and freight (CIF), and applies the EU Common External Tariff to non-EU imports. Most customs costs amount to 20-30% of CIF, including tariffs, value-added tax (16%), and customs agent and handling fees.

HOUSING

A housing boom beginning around 1998-2001 saw the creation of over two million new houses with about 600,000 new houses built in 2000. In 2000, about 20% to 25% of the housing market was attributed to those building second homes/vacation homes. Preliminary results from the 2001 census indicate a total of over 14 million dwelling units nationwide.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abel, Christopher, and Nissa Torrents eds. Spain: Conditional Democracy. New York: St. Martin's, 1984.

Alexander, Yonah (ed.). Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Altamira, Rafael. A History of Spain. New York: Van Nostrand, 1949.

Brenan, Gerald. The Literature of the Spanish People: From Roman Times to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

Carr, Raymond. Spain, 1808–1975. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.

Davies, Reginald Trevor. The Golden Century of Spain, 1501– 1621. New York: St. Martin's, 1954.

Donaghy, P. J. Spain: A Guide to Political and Economic Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Douglass, Carrie B. Bulls, Bullfighting, and Spanish Identities. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.

Gagnon, Alain G. and James Tully, ed. Multinational Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Grabowski, John F. Spain. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2000.

Gunther, Richard. Spain after Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

——. ed. Politics, Society, and Democracy: The Case of Spain. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.

Herr, Richard. The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958.

Hooper, John. The Spaniards: A Portrait of the New Spain, Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1987.

Hume, Martin A. S. Spain: Its Greatness and Decay (1479– 1788). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940.

Maxwell, Kenneth. Spanish Foreign and Defense Policy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991.

McElrath, Karen, ed. HIV and AIDS: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Newton, Michael T. Institutions of Modern Spain: A Political and Economic Guide. Updated and expanded ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Olson, James S., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Empire, 1402–1975. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969.

Payne, G. Stanley. The Franco Regime, 1936–1975. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.

——. A History of Spain and Portugal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973.

Perez Diaz, Victor. The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Preston, Paul, ed. Revolution and War in Spain, 1931–1939. New York: Methuen, 1985.

Pritchett, V. S. The Spanish Temper. New York: Knopf, 1954.

Rubottom, Richard R., and J. C. Murphy. Spain and the United States: Since World War II. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Smith, Angel. Historical Dictionary of Spain. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1996.

Solsten, Eric and Sandra W. Meditz, ed. Spain: A Country Study. 2d ed. Washington, D.C: Library of Congress, 1990.

Spanish Women in the Golden Age: Images and Realities. Edited by Magdalena S. Sanchez and Alain Saint-Saens. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996.

Summers, Randal W., and Allan M. Hoffman, ed. Domestic Violence: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Tebbel, John William. America's Great Patriotic War with Spain: Mixed Motives, Lies, and Racism in Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1915. Manchester Center, Vt.: Marshall Jones Co., 1996.

Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Rev. ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.

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