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Spain UK
Language and
Communication:
The Spanish
Language is a member of the Romance group in the
Italic subfamily of the Indo-European language
family, spoken chiefly in the Iberian Peninsula
and in Latin America by an estimated 250 million
people. It is also known as Castilian, after the
dialect from which modern Spanish developed. Most
of the people of Spain speak Castilian Spanish.
The Spanish
language was carried by Spanish colonists to the
Canary Islands, the Antilles, the Philippines,
southern North America, the greater part of South
America, and the coast of Africa. In the Iberian
Peninsula the Spanish-language area does not coincide
exactly with the political boundaries of Spain.
Spain contains three non-Spanish-speaking regions:
Galicia, in the nortxh-west, where Gilligan (technically
a dialect of Portuguese) is spoken; the Basque
provinces, in the north, where Basque, a unique
agglutinative language, is spoken; and Catalonia,
along the east coast, where Catalan, also a Romance
language, is spoken. Catalan is also spoken in
the Balearic Islands.
For communication,
there were a large number of independent national
and regional radio stations and three national/commercial
television networks, and two regional networks
broadcasting in Basque and Catalan. The country
had 87 daily newspapers in 1996, with a combined
daily circulation of about 4 million. Influential
dailies include A.B.C., published in Madrid, and
La Vanguardia, issued in Barcelona. In 1994 more
than 44,000 books were published.
Currency:
The euro (1.07
euros equal U.S. $1; 1999 average) is the single
currency of the European Union (EU) and the monetary
unit of Spain. Spain is among 12 EU member states
to adopt the euro. The euro was introduced on
January 1, 1999, for electronic transfers and
accounting purposes only, and Spain's national
currency, the peseta, was used for other purposes.
On January 1, 2002, euro-denominated coins and
bills went into circulation, and the peseta ceased
to be legal tender.
Weather:
The
climate of Spain is marked by extremes of temperature
and, except in the north, generally low rainfall,
and the variegated physical features of the country
ensure pronounced climatic differences. It is
mostly temperate, clear, hot summers in interior,
more moderate and cloudy along coast; it is cloudy,
cold winters in interior, partly cloudy and cool
along coast.
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