Spain is in the south-west of Europe and together with Portugal forms the Iberian Peninsula. In terms of size, it covers 504,000 square kilometres, including the island provinces of the Balearics and the Canaries. The four thousand kilometres of Peninsular coastline are lapped by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Cantabrian Sea. At the beginning of the third millennium, Spain has around 41 million inhabitants, with a density of 81 people per square kilometre.

All ancient and medieval cultures saw Spain as the physical end of the known world at the time, closing off the western end of the Mediterranean.Spain, particularly the areas lapped by the Mediterranean and around the Straits of Gibraltar, has always been sought out by adventurers, sailors and people looking to dominate the known world. The Bible talks of the mines of Tharsis, located just beyond land where Hercules' columns stood. For this reason classical mythology has placed in Spain on the columns that held up the end of the world, namely the huge rock of Gibraltar, the other was to be found in the north of Africa, perfectly visible from the northern shore.