Iberia – Travel Guide At Wikivoyage

History

Separated from France by the Pyrenees mountains, its history has frequently taken a different path from the rest of Europe, giving the region a separate identity. The Basque people settled here millennia ago, retaining their culture to this day. The Roman Empire expanded into it in the 3rd century BCE, before being supplanted by the Visigoths in the 5th century. The peninsula again took on a non-European character when the Islamic Berber and Arabic Moors took over in the 8th century, ruling parts of it until the 15th century. As Christian rule gradually took back the peninsula from the Moors, its people then looked outward; Portugal sponsored the Cape Route expeditions, and Spain the voyages of Columbus and Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation. The Tordesillas treaty divided the new lands between Spain and Portugal, allowing the Portuguese to colonise Africa, India and Brazil, while the Spanish Empire came to control much of the Americas and the Philippines. The Iberian Union between 1580 and 1640 held the Iberian peninsula, as well as the overseas colonies of both countries, at its time the world's largest empire.

Gold and silver from the colonies brought wealth and glory to the mother countries, but it was not sustainable. From the War of the Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, Spain and Portugal lost their status as great powers, and lost most of their colonies during the 19th century. While Brazil remained governed by a branch line of the erstwhile Portuguese royal house in the late 19th century, Spain lost Gibraltar to England in the 18th century, continental Latin America in the early 19th century and almost all its remaining colonies in the Spanish American War of 1898 which caused a literary movement often called "the generation of 98" to bemoan Spain's fall from glory.

Dictatorial and fascist governments kept Spain and Portugal out of World War II, although Spain in particular was devastated by its civil war in the late 1930s, while Portugal provided limited assistance to the British under the auspices of the longstanding Treaty of Windsor. Since the end of the Salazar and Franco regimes in the 1970s, both have become full members of the European Union. Since the mid-20th century, tourism has been a substantial part of the countries' economies, especially on the islands, and while many seaside resorts are dominated by tourists, much of the inland is still off the beaten path. While both countries became democratic in the late 20th century and enjoyed tremendous economic growth, they were hit hard by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Several regions of Spain, especially Catalonia, call for independence, or increased autonomy. In the Basque country, pro-independence violence (and some measure of anti-independence reprisals) have plagued the region since the late Franco era, but the situation has notably calmed down in the 21st century with a peaceful autonomy/independence movement increasingly distancing itself from any violence.

Gibraltar is a tiny British outpost dominated by a massive rock. It was ceded by Spain in 1713. Spain continues to seek its return.