Nationalities and regions of Spain

Spain is a diverse country integrated by different contrasting entities that show varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages and historical, political and cultural traditions. According to the current Spanish constitution, the Spanish nation is the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards, which is composed of nationalities and regions to which the constitution recognizes and guarantees the right to self-government.

The term nationalities, or historical nationalities, though never defined officially, indicate territories whose inhabitants have a strong historically-constituted sense of identity, or, more specifically, certain autonomous communities whose Statutes of autonomy—their basic institutional legislation—recognizes their historical and cultural identity.

In Spanish jurisprudence, the concept nationality appears for the first time in the current constitution, approved in 1978, and after much debate in the Spanish Parliament. Although it was explicitly understood that the term made reference to Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, the constitution does not specify any by name. Between the strong centralist position inherited from Franco's regime and the nationalist position mainly from the Galicians, Basques, and Catalans, that term came about as a consensus and was applied in their respective Statutes of Autonomy once all nationalities and regions acceded to self-government or autonomy and were constituted as autonomous communities.

Currently, the term is not only used in reference to three above-mentioned communities, but also in reference to Andalusia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia and more recently Aragon and the Canary Islands. The rest of the autonomous communities (Castile-La Mancha, Murcia, La Rioja, Extremadura) are simply defined as regions of Spain, oftentimes as historical regions. Asturias, Cantabria and Castile and León are referred to as regions "having a historical regional identity". Navarre is defined as a chartered community in the re-institution of its medieval charters and the Community of Madrid is defined neither as a nationality nor as a region, but as a community created in the nation's interest as the seat of the capital of the nation.

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Wikipedia