Everything about The Iberian Peninsula totally explained
The
Iberian Peninsula, or
Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of
Europe, and includes modern day
Spain,
Portugal,
Andorra and
Gibraltar and a very small part of
France. It is the western and southernmost of the three southern European
peninsulas (the Iberian,
Italian, and
Balkan peninsulas). It is bordered on the south and east by the
Mediterranean Sea, and on the north and west by the
Atlantic Ocean. The
Pyrenees form the northeast edge of the peninsula, separating it from the rest of Europe. In the south, it approaches the northern coast of
Africa. It is the second largest peninsula in Europe, with an area of 582 860 km². The name "Iberia" was also used since the times of
Ancient Greece and
Rome for another territory at the opposite corner of
Europe,
Caucasian Iberia, in modern day
Georgia.
Name
The term
Iberia is the
Greek equivalent of
Latin Hispania. Surviving
Roman texts always use
Hispania for the peninsula (first mentioned in 200 BC by the poet
Quintus Ennius) while Greek texts employ
Iberia. It is believed that the root
Iber is of
Iberian origin, and could relate to the word ancient Iberians used to say
river (which may have survived in the modern name or the
Ebro river, which was named by the Romans
Iberus Flumen, or River Iber).
Notice that substituting
Spanish for
Iberian or
Spain for the Iberian Peninsula is anachronistic and potentially misleading, since the peninsula includes also Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar, and a tiny French territory in the Pyrenees, and hasn't been under unified rule since the short-lived
Iberian Union (1580-1640).
One should also notice that the modern usage of
Hispanic, if not used in a specific historical meaning, mostly refers to Spain or the
Spanish speaking world. The equivalent term for Portugal or the
Portuguese speaking world is
Lusitanic (derived from the
Roman Province of
Hispania Lusitania).
Iberian, in modern usage, refers to the whole of the peninsula, that is, Portugal and Spain and to a lesser extent Gibraltar and Andorra.
History
» Further information: Prehistoric Iberia, Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, Hispania, Visigothic Kingdom, Spania, Al Andalus, Reconquista, History of Portugal and History of Spain.
The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1,000,000 years as remains found in the sites at
Atapuerca demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of
Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species
Homo erectus,
Homo heidelbergensis, or a new species called
Homo antecessor.
Around 200,000
BC, during the
Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000
BC, during the
Middle Paleolithic period the
last ice age began and the Neanderthal
Mousterian culture was established. Around 35,000
BC, during the
Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal
Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from
Southern France this culture extended into Northern Iberia. This culture continued to exist until around 28,000
BC when Neanderthal man faced extinction, their final refuge being present-day Portugal.
At about the
40th millennium BC Modern Humans make way into the
Iberian peninsula, coming from
Southern France. Here, this
genetically homogeneous population (characterized by the M173
mutation in the
Y chromosome), developed the
M343 mutation, giving rise to the
R1b Haplogroup, still common in modern
Portuguese and
Spanish populations. In Iberia, Modern Humans will develop a series of different cultures, such as the
Aurignacian,
Gravettian,
Solutrean and
Magdalenian cultures, some of then characterized by complex forms of
Paleolithic art.
During the
Neolithic expansion, various
megalithic cultures had developed in Iberia. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the
Cardium culture, had also extended their influence to the eastern coasts of Iberia, possibly as early as the 5th millennium B.C. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the
Iberian civilization.
In the
Chalcolithic or Copper Age (c. 3000 BC. in Iberia) a series of complex cultures developed, that would give rise of the first civilizations in Iberia and of extensive exchange networks that would reach to the
Baltic, the
Middle East and
North Africa. Since c. 2150 BC the
Bell Beaker culture intrudes in Chalcolithic Iberia, of quite clear
Central European origin. Bronze Age cultures eventually developed since c.1800 BC, where the civilization of
Los Millares was followed by that of
El Argar - from this center, bronze technology spread to other areas, such as those of the
Bronze of Levante,
South-Western Iberian Bronze and
Cogotas I. In the Late Bronze Age the clearly urban civilization of
Tartessos would develop in the area of modern western
Andalusia, characterized by
Phoenician influence and
Tartessian script of its
Tartessian language (a
language isolate not related to the
Iberian language)
Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Pre-Celts and
Celts migrated from
central Europe, thus partially changing the ethnic landscape of Iberia into a clearly
Indo-European space in its northern and western regions.
By the
Iron Age, starting in the 7th century BC, the global panorama in Iberia was one of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the
Lusitanians, the
Celtiberians, the
Gallaeci, the
Astur, or the
Celtici, amongst others), the cultures of the
Iberians in the eastern and southern zones of Iberia and the cultures of the
Aquitanian in the western portion of the
Pyrenees.
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 8th century BCE the first
Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern
Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (
Ebro). In the 6th century BCE the
Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was
Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day
Cartagena).
In 219 BCE, the first
Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, during the
Second Punic war against the Carthaginians, and annexed it under
Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies, resulting in the creation of the province of
Hispania. It was divided into
Hispania Ulterior and
Hispania Citerior during the late
Roman Republic, and during the
Roman Empire, it was divided into
Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast,
Hispania Baetica in the south and
Lusitania in the southwest.
Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors
Trajan,
Hadrian and
Theodosius I, the philosopher
Seneca and the poets
Martial and
Lucan were born from families living in Iberia.
In the early 5th century,
Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, namely the
Suevi, the
Vandals (
Silingi and
Hasdingi) and their allies, the
Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the
Suevi (
Quadi and
Marcomanni) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the
Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city
Bracara (modern day
Braga) in 584-585. They would also conquer the
province of the
Byzantine Empire (552-624) of
Spania in the south of the peninsula and the
Balearic Islands.
In 711 CE, a
North African
Moorish Umayyad army invaded Visigothic Christian Hispania. Under their leader
Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at
Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign.
Al-ʾAndalūs (
Arabic الإندلس : Land of the Vandals) is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its
Muslim conquerors and its subsesquent inhabitants.
From the 8th to the 15th centuries, parts of the Iberian peninsula were ruled by the
Moors (mainly
Berber with some
Arab) who had crossed over from
North Africa. Many of the ousted
Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north
Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the
Reconquista. Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves. The Muslim
taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, the
Way of Saint James attracted pilgrims from all Western Europe and the
Jewish population of Iberia set the basis of
Sephardic culture.
In
medieval times the peninsula housed many small states including
Castile,
Aragon,
Navarre,
León and
Portugal. The peninsula was part of the Islamic
Almohad empire until they were finally uprooted. The last major Muslim stronghold was
Granada which was eliminated by a combined Castilian and Aragonese force in 1492. The small states gradually amalgamated over time, with the exception of Portugal, even if for a brief period (1580-1640) the whole peninsula was united politically under the
Iberian Union. After that point the modern position was reached and the peninsula now consists of the countries of
Spain and
Portugal (excluding their islands - the Portuguese
Azores and
Madeira Islands and the Spanish
Canary Islands and
Balearic Islands; and the Spanish
exclaves of
Ceuta and
Melilla),
Andorra,
French Cerdagne and
Gibraltar.
Modern Countries & territories
Political divisions of the Iberian Peninsula sorted by area:
- Spain, occupying most of the peninsula, including the north, centre, east and northwest
- Area: 504,030 km² (493,519 in the Peninsula)
Portugal, occupying most of the west of the peninsula
- Area: 92,345 km² (89,261 in the Peninsula)
French Cerdagne, a small French territory in the Pyrenees Mountains technically on the Iberian peninsula
Andorra, a microstate at the northern edge of the peninsula in the Pyrenees between Spain and France
Gibraltar, a tiny British overseas territory near the southernmost tip of the peninsula, bordering Spain
Further Information
Get more info on 'Iberian Peninsula'.
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