Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España, unofficially in Galician: Reino de España; Catalan: Regne d'Espanya; Basque: Espainiako Erresuma; Occitan: Regne d'Espanha; Asturian: Reinu d'España), is the largest of the three sovereign nations that make up the Iberian Peninsula—the others are Portugal and Andorra—located in Southern Europe. To the west and to the south of Galicia, Spain borders Portugal. To the south, it borders Gibraltar and, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), Morocco. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, the "rocks" (peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil }. In the northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.The indigenous peoples of the Iberian peninsula, consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of Iberians. This may have included the Basques, as one of the pre-Celtic people. The most important culture of this period is that of the city of Tartessos. Beginning in the 8th century BCE, Celtic tribes entered the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees and settled throughout the peninsula, becoming the Celtiberians. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.
Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 9th century BCE the first Greek colonies... (for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain )
