Andalusia

Comunidad Autónoma de Andalucía

85px Flag Coat of arms
Motto: Andalucía por sí, para España y la humanidad (Andalusia by herself, for Spain, and for humankind)
Anthem: La bandera blanca y verde
Capital	Seville
Official language(s)	Spanish
Area  – Total  – % of Spain	Ranked 2nd  87,268 km²  17.2%
Population  – Total (2006)  – % of Spain  – Density	Ranked 1st  7,975,672  17.84  91.39/km²
Demonym  – English  – Spanish	Andalusian  Andaluz, andaluza
Statute of Autonomy	December 30 1981
Parliamentary representation  – Congress seats  – Senate seats	62  40
President	Manuel Chaves González (PSOE)
ISO 3166-2	AN
Junta de Andalucía

Alamillo Bridge, Seville designed by Santiago Calatrava

Malecón of La Caleta, Cádiz

Andalusia (Spanish: Andalucía) is an autonomous community of Spain. Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest, in terms of its land area, of the seventeen autonomous communities of the Kingdom of Spain. Its capital is Seville.

Andalusia is bounded on the north by the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; on the east by the autonomous community of Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea; on the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates Spain from Morocco, and the Atlantic Ocean. The British overseas territory of Gibraltar shares a three-quarter-mile land border with the Andalusian province of Cádiz at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.

History

Tartessians and Phoenicians

Tartessos, home of the once-powerful Tartessian civilization, was founded in Andalusia in pre-Roman times. The Phoenicians colonized several areas on the Andalusian coast during the latter part of the second millennium B.C.E. The most important settlement was Cadiz (Gdr or Gdz in Hebrew) around 1100 B.C.E.

Carthaginians and Romans

With the fall of the Phoenician cities, Carthage became the dominant sea power in the western Mediteranean and the most important trading partner for the Semitic towns along the Andalusian coast. Between the first and second Carthaginian wars, Carthage extended its control beyond Andalusia to include all of Iberia except the Basquelands. Andalusia was the major staging ground for the war vs Rome led by the Barkid Hannibal. The Romans defeated the Carthaginians and conquered Andalusia, the region being renamed Betica.

Vandals and Visigoths

The Vandals moved briefly through the region during the 5th century CE before settling in North Africa, after which the region fell into the hands of the Kingdom of the Visigoths who had to face the Byzantine interests in the region.

Arabs and Moors

The Umayyad Caliphate invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 711-718 marked the collapse of Visigothic rule. Andalucian culture was deeply influenced by half a millennium of Muslim rule during the Middle Ages. Córdoba became the largest and richest city in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. The Moors established universities in Andalucia, and cultivated scholarship, bringing together the greatest achievements of all of the civilisations they had encountered. During that period Moorish and Jewish scholars played a major part in reviving and contributing to Western astronomy, medicine, philosophy and mathematics. With the fall of Seville in 1248 most of Andalucia came under Castilian control, leaving only the emirate of Granada under Muslim rule until it too was conquered by the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. The largest Arabic speaking population was in Andalucia, which also received Moors from other regions who were driven south by the Reconquista, and although many either converted or left later, they gave the region its distinctive character till this day.

Andalucia is known for its Moorish and Moorish influenced architecture. Notable examples include the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita in Córdoba, the Torre del Oro and Giralda towers. Other architectural styles include Mozarabic, such as the Reales Alcázares in Seville, and the Alcazaba in Málaga. Archaeological ruins include Medina Azahara, near Córdoba, and the Roman city of Itálica, near Seville, and at Palos, in the province of Huelva, the Andalusian port from which Columbus's expedition of discovery was launched.

The Spanish language spoken in the Americas is largely descended from the Andalusian dialect of Spanish. Although, the Spanish spoken at the Canary Islands resembles more the Spanish spoken in the Caribbean. This is due to the role played by Seville as the gateway to Spain's American territories during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Andalusia Day (in Spanish, Día de Andalucía) is celebrated on February 28, to commemorate the date of the successful referendum vote on autonomy.

Geography

The major lowland regions of Spain are the Andalusian Plain in the southwest, the Ebro Basin in the northeast, and the coastal plains. The Andalusian Plain is essentially a wide river valley through which the Río Guadalquivir flows. The river broadens out along its course, reaching its widest point at the Golfo de Cadiz. The Andalusian Plain is bounded on the north by the Sierra Morena and on the south by the Sistema Penibético; it narrows to an apex in the east where these two mountain chains meet. The Ebro Basin is formed by the Río Ebro valley, contained by mountains on three sides—the Sistema Ibérico to the south and west, the Pyrenees to the north and east, and their coastal extensions paralleling the shore to the east. Minor low-lying river valleys close to the Portuguese border are located on the Tagus and the Río Guadiana.

Administrative divisions

The Mezquita in Córdoba

Province	Capital	Population	Density	Municipalities
Almería	Almería	635.850	72,47 hab./km²	Municipalities
Cádiz	Cádiz	1.180.817	158,80 hab./km²	Municipalities
Córdoba	Córdoba	788.287	72,47 hab./km²	Municipalities
Granada	Granada	882.184	68,70 hab./km²	Municipalities
Huelva	Huelva	483.792	47,67 hab./km²	Municipalities
Jaén	Jaén	662.751	49,09 hab./km²	Municipalities
Málaga	Málaga	1.491.287	204,06 hab./km²	Municipalities
Seville	Seville	1.813.908	129,23 hab./km²	Municipalities

Provinces of Andalusia

Other important Andalusian cities are:

• El Ejido, and Roquetas de Mar, Almería
• La Línea de la Concepción, Algeciras, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Rota, San Fernando, Jerez, and El Puerto, Cádiz
• Almuñécar, Guadix, Loja and Motril, Granada
• Linares, Úbeda and Baeza, Jaén
• Antequera, Ronda and Marbella, Málaga
• Dos Hermanas, Lebrija, Osuna and Utrera, Sevilla

Economy

According to the Spanish Instituto Nacional de Estadística, the GDP per capita of Andalusia (17.251 €, 2006^{[citation needed]}) is still one of the lowest in Spain. At the same time, the manufacturing and service sectors have grown at a higher rate than in Spain and the rest of the Eurozone. This growth rate is expected to continue.^{[citation needed]}

Transports and commerce

The main road in the region is the European Route E15

Government and Politics

Historical nationalities (Spanish: Nacionalidades históricas) in Spain is the term most commonly used to refer to regions that are granted by the 1978 Constitution a special status as autonomous communities. Other terms may also be employed in the particular Statute of Autonomy of each autonomous community. These regions are: Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia and Andalusia, all of them officially recognized as nationalities. The other 13 autonomous communities were granted less devolved powers and became autonomous communities by the so-called slow track.

They were intended to recognize the regions that had their statutes of autonomy in an advanced stage during the Second Spanish Republic. The term nationality was a consensous solution trying to conciliate the centralist and old-regime positions, who consider this regions part of the indivisible unity of Spain, with the nationalists, who consider this territories as nations (see also "Nationality" vs. "nation").

Actually, only the Catalan statute was active before the Spanish Civil War. Andalusia statute of autonomy was drawn and submitted by Blas Infante at the same time , then approved by parliament in June 1936, to be voted in referendum in September 1936. However the start of the Civil War in July and the assassination of Infante by Franco's rebels in August of the same year put an end to the autonomist project for Andalusia.

The Basque statute was approved during the war and was effective only on the limited part of the region under the control of the Basque Government.

As of 2007, the autonomous communities which are defined in their statutes of autonomy as nationalities , therefore legally recognised as such are:

Andalucía (1981 and 2006 statutes), Aragón (1996), Canary islands (1996), Catalonia (1979 and 2006), Valencia (1982 and 2006), Galicia (1981) and Basque Country (1979).

The Autonomous Comunitie of Andalusia is administrated through the "Junta de Andalucia" and is one of the 4 historic Autonomous Communities of Spain. It has a local parliament and president.

Native or Famous people from Andalusia

• Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi
• Alejandro Sanz
• Antonio Banderas
• Antonio Gala
• Averroes
• Blas Infante
• Camarón de la Isla
• Carmen Sevilla
• Chiquito de la Calzada
• David Bisbal
• Diana Navarro
• Estrella Morente
• Diego Velázquez
• Federico García Lorca
• Felipe González
• Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
• Isabel Pantoja
• Jean Reno
• Lola Flores
• Maimonides
• Manuel de Falla
• Pablo Picasso
• Paco de Lucía
• Rocío Jurado
• Rosa López
• Seneca the Younger
• Trajan

see also Cat:Andalusian people

See also

• Andalusian people
• List of Andalusians
• Andalusian nationalism
• Music of Andalusia
• Andalusian cuisine
• Canal Sur

External links

• Official Tourism Website of Andalusia
• History of the Andalusian Flag
• Andalucia Photo and History Pages
• FiestasdeAndalucia.com Fairs and traditional fiestas of Andalusia

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