The name of Spain derives from Hispania, the name by which the Romans designated geographically the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, Iberia alternative term to the name preferred by Greek writers to refer to the same space. However, the fact that the term Hispania is Latin roots has led to the formulation of several theories about its origin, some of them controversial.
‘Hispania’ derives from the Phoenician i-spn-ya, a term whose use is documented from the second millennium before Christ, in Ugaritic inscription. The Phoenicians were the first civilization not reached the Iberian peninsula to expand their trade and who founded, among others, Gadir, the current Cadiz, the oldest inhabited city in Western Europe. The Romans took the name of the defeated Carthaginians, i like playing the prefix “coast”, “island” or “land”, with and with the meaning of “region.” The spn lexeme, which in Hebrew can be read as Saphan, translated as “rabbits” (actually hyrax, a rabbit-sized animals extended to Africa and the Fertile Crescent). The Romans, therefore, gave to Spain the meaning of “land rich in rabbits, use collected by Cicero, Caesar, Pliny the Elder, Cato, Livy, and in particular, Catullus, referred to as a peninsula Hispania cuniculi (some coins in the time of Hadrian Hispania included as embodiments of a lady sitting with a rabbit at his feet). Elaborating on the Phoenician origin of the term, Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies, posits that has its origin in Ispani, the Phoenician-Punic toponym of Seville, a city which the Romans called Hispalis.
ANDALUSIA
Andalusia has three major geographic subregions. In the north, the mountainous Sierra Morena separates Andalusia from the plains of Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha on Spain’s Meseta Central. South of that, one can distinguish Upper Andalusia, generally the Baetic System, from Lower Andalusia with its Baetic Depression of the valley of the Guadalquivir.
ARAGON
Aragon’s northern province of Huesca borders France and is positioned in the middle of the Pyrenees. Within Spain, the community is flanked by Catalonia on the east, Valencia and Castile-La Mancha to the south, and Castile and Leon, La Rioja, and Navarre to the west.
BASQUE COUNTRY
The Basque Country borders with Cantabria and the Burgos province to the west, the Bay of Biscay to the north, France and Navarre to the east and La Rioja (the Ebro River) to the south. The territory has three distinct areas, that are defined by the two parallel ranges of the Basque Mountains. The main range of mountains forms the water divide of the Atlantic and Mediterranean basins.
CATALONIA
Like some other parts in the rest of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia was colonised by Ancient Greeks, who settled around the Roses area. Both Greeks and Carthaginians (who, in the course of the Second Punic War, briefly ruled the territory) interacted with the main Iberian substratum. After the Carthaginian defeat by Rome, it became, along with the rest of Hispania, part of the Roman Empire, Tarraco being one of the main Roman posts in the Iberian Peninsula.
CASTILLA-LA MANCHA
Castile-La Mancha was formerly grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile (Castilla la Nueva), but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of autonomous regions (Estado de las autonomías), it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces. Also, compared to the former New Castile, Castile-La Mancha add the province of Albacete, which had been part of Murcia; adding Albacete placed all of La Mancha within this single region.
It is mostly in this region where the story of the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is situated – due to which La Mancha is internationally well-known. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau, it remains a symbol of the Spanish culture with its vineyards, sunflowers, mushrooms, oliveyards, windmills, Manchego cheese, and Don Quixote.
REGION OF VALENCIA
The origins of present day Valencia date back to the former Kingdom of Valencia (Regne de València), which came into existence in the 13th century. James I of Aragon led Christian conquest and colonization of the existing Islamic taifas with Aragonese and Catalan people in 1208 and founded the Kingdom of Valencia as a third independent country within the Crown of Aragon in 1238.
In 1707, in the context the War of the Spanish Succession, and by means of the Nueva Planta decrees, king Philip V of Spain subordinated the Kingdom of Valencia, and the rest of the countries belonging to the former Crown of Aragon and which had retained some autonomy, to the structure of the Kingdom of Castile and its laws and customs. As a result of this, the institutions and laws created by the Furs of Valencia (Furs de València) were abolished and the usage of the Valencian language in official instances and education was forbidden. Consequently, with the House of Bourbon, a new Kingdom of Spain was formed implementing a more centralized government than the former Habsburg Spain.