Information about Spain

This page gives a lot of information about Spain. Since its publication however some of the things changed, so all the information below is not fully up to date

Don Quichot en Sancho Panza

People and languages

Indigenous 98%.

Spanish 90.3%. Major languages: Castilian 29m; Catalan 6.7m; Galician 3m; Asturian 450,000; Extremaduran 200,000; Aragonese 30,000.

Basque 5.7%. Euskera is the primary language of 42% of the 1.1m Basques in the Basque Autonomous Region. All Basques 2.2m.

Other 2%. Roma (Gypsy) 600,000+.

Foreign 2%.s North African/Arab 450,000; Latin American 160,000; EU citizens 100,000; Chinese 30,000; Iranian 15,000.

Literacy 97%. Official language Castilian. Catalan, Galician and Basque are the official languages in the respective autonomous regions. Spanish is the first language of 340 million people; the world's third most widely-used language. All languages 14. Languages with Scriptures 4Bi 1NT 3por 4w.i.p.

Economy

The mightiest economic power in the world in the 16th Century followed by three centuries of decline and economic stagnation until entry into the EU in 1986. Integration into Europe has transformed the country into a modern, confident, industrial power with rapidly rising living standards. Main sources of income are tourism and industry. HDI 0.894; 21st/174. Public debt 55% of GNP. Income/person $14,490 (46% of USA).

Politics

Spain's tumultuous past moulds the present. The Muslim Moorish occupation lasted 700 years, ending in 1492. The world-wide Spanish empire lasted for three centuries. The last two centuries have been marked by instability, civil wars and dictatorships; the latter under General Franco lasted from 1939 to 1975. Constitutional monarchy with an effective multi-party democracy. Wide powers have been given to 17 autonomous communities as a means of preserving national unity. The left-wing Basque ETA terrorist campaign for full Basque independence has plagued Spain and divided the Basque community since 1961.

Religion

During Franco's dictatorship, Catholicism was the state religion. Non-Catholics, especially Evangelicals, were subject to discrimination and even persecution. The 1978 constitution guaranteed equality of rights for all ideologies and religions, though Catholicism remains the official religion. Equality for Evangelicals, Muslims and Jews was only established in 1992. There are still evidences of covert discrimination against religious minorities. Over 30% of the population, though baptized Catholic, no longer claim any link with Catholicism and a further 40-50% are inactive.

Answers to Prayer

The transformation of Spain since 1974 is astonishing – from dictatorship to liberty, poverty to wealth, isolation to integration into Europe and religious discrimination to rampant secularism. The people movement among Spain's despised marginalized Roma (Gypsies) since 1966. The Filadelfia movement has become the largest evangelical body in the country. Evangelicals have grown in numbers from a paltry 3- 4,000 adult believers in 1900, to 20,000 in 1970, to an estimated small, but significant 96,000 in 2000. There were 300 evangelical congregations in 1970, but 2,000 by 2000 as well as the Filadelfia Roma churches. Churches in Madrid have grown from 18 to 189 over that period.

Missionaries from Spain

P,I,A 416 in 43 agencies. Spain 129; Argentina 38, Italy 17, Mexico 14, all Middle East 29, Portugal 32.

Missionaries to Spain

P,I,A 1,266 in 182 agencies from 38 countries: USA 499, UK 149, Brazil 60, Germany 55, Canada 52, Mexico 37, Korea 25.

Geography

Area 504,783 sq.km. The major part of the Iberian peninsula and Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. Also included are the Canary Islands off north-west Africa and the enclaves of Ceuta and Mellila on the North African coast.
 

Capital Madrid 5 mill. Other major cities: Barcelona 4.2m; Valencia 1,375,000; Sevilla 1.05m; Bilbao 1m. Urbanites 78%.

From Operation World by Patrick J. St. G. Johnstone.

• Over 13 million live in towns, villages and districts where there is no evangelical church.
• Of the 17 regions, three have less than 20 Protestant churches – Cantabria (14), Lo Rioja (8) and Navarra (10). Galicia is less than 0.2%, and Extremadura 0.1%, evangelical.
• Of the 52 provinces, 28 have fewer than 1,000 evangelical believers.
• The one million students are largely un-reached..

Some of the challenges

Challenges for Prayer

If you want more specific prayer points for Spain you can click here or go to the official Website of Operation World: http://operationworld.org/country/spai/owtext.html

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