In Spain, an autonomous community is the first sub-national level of political and administrative division, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that make up Spain.
ISO 3166-2:ES is the entry for Spain in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.
In Spain, a comarca is either a traditional territorial division without any formal basis, or a group of municipalities, legally defined by an autonomous community for the purpose of providing common local government services. In English, a comarca is equivalent to a district, county, area or zone.
A comarca is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain, and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term marca, meaning a "march, mark", plus the prefix co-, meaning "together, jointly".
Spain is a diverse country integrated by contrasting entities with varying economic and social structures, languages, and historical, political and cultural traditions. The Spanish constitution responds ambiguously to the claims of historic nationalities while proclaiming a common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards.
Both the perceived nationhood of Spain, and the perceived distinctions between different parts of its territory derive from historical, geographical, linguistic, economic, political, ethnic and social factors.
The municipality is one of the two fundamental territorial divisions in Spain, the other being the provinces.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Spain:
The 1833 territorial division of Spain divided the country into provinces, in turn classified into "historic regions". This division was followed by the ensuing creation of provincial deputations, the government institutions for most of the provinces, remaining up to this date. Nearly all of the provinces retain roughly or precisely the 1833 borders. Conversely, many of the historic regions correspond to present-day autonomous communities.
Government in Spain is divided into three spheres or levels: the State itself, the regions or autonomous communities and local entities. These levels are not hierarchical, meaning there is no supremacy or primacy of one over the other, but rather they are separately defined by their jurisdictional powers.
The 2007 Spanish regional elections were held on Sunday, 27 May 2007, to elect the regional parliaments of thirteen of the seventeen autonomous communities—Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and León, Castilla–La Mancha, Extremadura, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre and the Valencian Community—, not including Andalusia, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, which had separate electoral cycles. 812 of 1,206 seats in the regional parliaments were up for election, as well as the 50 seats in the regional assemblies of Ceuta and Melilla. The elections were held simultaneously with local elections all throughout Spain.
This is the results breakdown of the Congress of Deputies election held in Spain on 9 March 2008. The following tables show detailed results in each of the country's 17 autonomous communities and in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, as well as a summary of constituency and regional results.
A provincial council is the administrator and governing body of a province of Spain. It is one of the entities that make up local government in Spain. The council is made up of a president, vice presidents, an executive committee and the plenary assembly of deputies.
This is the results breakdown of the European Parliament election held in Spain on 10 June 1987. The following tables show detailed results in each of the country's 17 autonomous communities and in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) is an association of local governments in Spain for the purpose of representing the interests of local government to other government authorities. In June 2023, there were 7,324 members of a potential 12,060.
Local government in Spain refers to the government and administration of what the Constitution calls "local entities", which are primarily municipalities, but also groups of municipalities including provinces, metropolitan areas, comarcas and mancomunidades and sub-municipal groups known as Minor local entities.
There is a variety of Vernacular languages spoken in Spain. Spanish, the official language in the entire country, is the predominant native language in almost all of the autonomous communities in Spain. Six of the seventeen autonomous communities in Spain have other co-official languages in addition to Spanish. Bilingualism in different degrees and in distinct communicative situations between Spanish and another language is a habitual practice for many of the Spanish people who reside in one of these autonomous communities.
The history of the territorial organization of Spain, in the modern sense, is a process that began in the 16th century with the dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Castile, the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada and later the Kingdom of Navarre. However, it is important to clarify the origin of the toponym Spain, as well as the territorial divisions that existed previously in the current Spanish territory.
