Spain

Core values & worldview

If you want to understand a Spaniard, it helps to know that Spain is both very old and very new. The country’s kingdoms were united by marriage in the fifteenth century, but its democracy is younger than many of the people you will meet. Older Spaniards grew up under a dictatorship; their grandchildren grew up with the euro, low-cost flights and same-sex marriage. A lot of Spanish life is about holding those two things together.^•

People first. Ask Spaniards what matters most and many will say family and friends. Adult children often live near, or with, their parents for longer than in northern Europe, partly because of high housing costs, and grandparents do a great deal of childcare. Sunday lunch with the family, a group of friends from school who still meet decades later, and the pueblo, the village a family came from, matter enormously.^•

Living in public. Spanish sociability happens outside: in bars and terraces, in the plaza, on the evening paseo, at the neighbourhood fiesta. Being warm, open and generous with time is valued; being cold or stingy (agarrado) is not. Conversation is lively and people often talk over each other. That is enthusiasm, not rudeness.

Pride and irony. Many Spaniards are fiercely proud of their food, their towns, their language and their way of life, while being caustically critical of their politicians and institutions. Pride in “Spain” as a nation is more complicated: because Franco used the flag, the anthem and the word patria for forty years, many on the left long felt uncomfortable with open patriotism, and in Catalonia and the Basque Country many feel their nation is not Spain at all.^•

A Catholic culture, increasingly without church. Catholic festivals still shape the year, from Holy Week processions to the first communions that fill restaurants each May, and many people baptise their children and marry in church. But in a March 2026 survey by the state polling centre CIS, only about 53% called themselves Catholic, and just 16% said they were practising.^•

Spain separated Church and State in the 1978 Constitution, and Catholic identity is often more about culture, family and the local saint than belief.^•

Daily life & customs

The clock. Spain keeps late hours. Lunch, the main meal, is often at two or three in the afternoon, and dinner at nine or ten at night; children are out in the plazas late on summer evenings. The famous siesta is more myth than habit in cities now, though many shops in smaller towns still close in the afternoon. One reason for the late schedule: in 1940 Franco moved Spain onto Central European Time to match Nazi Germany, and it never moved back, so the clocks run roughly an hour “ahead” of the sun.^•

Food as a social act. Eating is about company: tapas shared standing at a bar, a long sobremesa (lingering at the table after the meal), a paella cooked outdoors on a Sunday. Every region is passionate about its own dishes: Basque pintxos, Galician octopus, Valencian paella, Andalusian gazpacho, Castilian roast lamb, Catalan pa amb tomàquet.

Fiestas. Every town and neighbourhood has its patron-saint fiesta, with processions, music, fireworks and late nights; for emigrants and city-dwellers, the summer fiesta in the family’s village is a reason to go “home”. Christmas runs until 6 January, when the Three Kings, not Santa, traditionally bring the presents, and on New Year’s Eve Spaniards eat twelve grapes on the twelve chimes of midnight.

Football. La Liga is a national passion and a regional one: Real Madrid against FC Barcelona, el Clásico, carries the weight of capital against Catalonia, and Athletic Bilbao still fields only players with Basque roots.

Language. Spanish, castellano, is the official language everywhere. In Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, Catalan (called Valencian in Valencia) is co-official, as are Galician in Galicia and Basque in the Basque Country and part of Navarre. Millions of Spaniards grow up bilingual, and since 2023 those languages can be used in the Spanish Congress.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

The Civil War and Franco. This is the deepest wound. Around half a million people died in the war of 1936–39 and its repression, and Franco’s regime executed tens of thousands more after victory and imprisoned hundreds of thousands. More than 100,000 victims are believed to lie in unmarked graves.^•

Many families have relatives on both sides, or a grandfather nobody talked about. During the Transition people agreed not to use the past as a political weapon; since 2000, grandchildren have been opening graves and asking questions. Saying “it was all a long time ago” or “both sides were the same” can upset people, in opposite directions.^•

Terrorism. ETA killed about 850 people between 1968 and 2010, and on 11 March 2004 jihadist bombs on Madrid trains killed 191. Victims’ families are a respected presence in public life, and jokes about either are not welcome.^•

Catalonia. After the 2017 referendum and declaration of independence, the issue became painful on all sides: many Spaniards felt betrayed, many Catalans felt humiliated, and some families stopped talking politics at the table. Don’t assume a Spaniard’s view; it varies enormously.^•

The “Black Legend” and the empire. Many Spaniards feel their history has been told by its English, Dutch and Protestant enemies as uniquely cruel and fanatical (the Inquisition, the conquest). At the same time, a younger generation is more willing to question the empire. A foreigner who lectures about either can expect a lively response.^•

Being seen as backward or lazy. Older stereotypes of Spain as poor, sleepy and “different” (the Franco-era tourist slogan was “Spain is different”) rankle, especially for a generation that worked hard through a brutal economic crisis. Unemployment peaked at about 27% in 2013, and more than half of young people were out of work.^•

Modern attitudes

Socially liberal. In 2005 Spain became one of the first countries in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, under a Catholic-majority population, and it has been a pioneer on laws against gender violence. Mass feminist marches on 8 March since 2018 have been among the largest in Europe.^•

Pro-European. Joining the European Community in 1986 is remembered as the moment Spain rejoined Europe after decades of isolation, and EU funds visibly built its motorways and high-speed trains. Euroscepticism is weaker than in many member states.^•

A country of immigration. A nation that sent millions abroad now receives them. On 1 January 2026 Spain had about 49.6 million residents, of whom just over 10 million were born abroad; the largest recent flows came from Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco. Shared language makes Latin Americans’ integration easier, while immigration from Africa, especially at Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands, is more politically charged.^•

Polarised politics. The crisis of 2008 broke the old two-party system. Podemos rose on the left, Ciudadanos in the centre, and from 2018 Vox on the nationalist right, which campaigns against Catalan separatism, feminism laws and immigration. Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led governments relied on Catalan and Basque parties, at the price of an amnesty for the 2017 independence leaders. Housing costs have since become one of the issues most likely to break governments.^•

Housing and the young. Rents and house prices, driven up in part by tourism and short-term lets, are the issue that most unites young Spaniards, and protests in 2024–26 drew large crowds in Madrid, Barcelona, the Canaries and the Balearics.^•

Not all Spaniards are the same

By region. Spain is a mosaic. A Basque, a Galician, an Andalusian, a Canarian and a Madrileño have different accents, histories, food and politics. In Catalonia and the Basque Country many people feel Catalan or Basque first, and some don’t feel Spanish at all; in Castile and Madrid, being Spanish is often simply assumed. Most Spaniards, asked in surveys, say they feel both Spanish and attached to their region.^•

Left and right. The “two Spains” still have echoes: in how people feel about the monarchy, the Church, the flag, the Civil War and Franco. A conservative Catholic from Castile and a left-wing union activist from Asturias may share very little except their love of the same football team.^•

Generations. Grandparents may remember hunger, emigration to Germany or a Francoist school; parents remember the euphoria of the Transition and the movida; young adults came of age during the crisis, with insecure jobs and expensive housing.^•

City and the “emptied Spain”. Huge areas of the interior, Teruel, Soria, parts of Castile, have been losing people for decades, and the España vaciada (“emptied Spain”) movement has even won seats in parliament. Life there is very different from booming Madrid.

New Spaniards and old minorities. More than one resident in five was born abroad. Spain’s Gitano (Roma) community, present for over five centuries, shaped flamenco and still faces discrimination. There are long-established Muslim communities in Ceuta and Melilla, and a growing Muslim population across the country.^•

The diaspora. Generations of Spaniards emigrated to Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Uruguay, and in the 1960s to France, Germany and Switzerland; Republican exiles after 1939 shaped intellectual life in Mexico. After 2008 a new wave of young graduates left for Britain and Germany.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Food. Ask where to eat, what their region is famous for, or whether tortilla should have onion. You will make a friend.
• Their town and its fiestas. Where people are from, and their village (pueblo), is a great opening.
• Football, if they follow it, though be careful of tribal loyalties.
• Travel tips. Most Spaniards love recommending places in their country, and will have strong views on the best beach or the best ham.

Topics to approach carefully

• The Civil War and Franco. Let them lead. Families are often divided, and many carry painful stories.^•
  • The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain — Paul Preston, HarperPress (2012)
  • Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past — Giles Tremlett, Faber & Faber (2006)
• Catalonia and the Basque Country. Opinions run from fierce unionism to sympathy for independence. Don’t assume, and don’t call Catalan or Basque “dialects of Spanish”: they are separate languages (Basque is not even related to Spanish).^•
  • The Rise of Catalan Independence: Spain's Territorial Crisis — Andrew Dowling, Routledge (2018)
  • Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia — Kathryn A. Woolard, Oxford University Press (2016)
• The monarchy. Some admire the king; others see the monarchy as Franco’s legacy, especially after the scandals around Juan Carlos.^•
  • Juan Carlos of Spain: Self-Made Monarch — Charles Powell, Macmillan (1996)
• Bullfighting. For some it is art and tradition, for many others cruelty; attendance has fallen and it is a cultural-political flashpoint.
• Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla. Territorial questions can trigger strong national feeling.

Common misconceptions

• “Spain and Latin America are the same.” They share a language and many ties, but Spain is a European country with its own history, accents and food; Spanish food is not spicy, and tacos are Mexican.
• “Everybody naps every afternoon.” Most working Spaniards don’t take a siesta; they work long hours with a long lunch break.
• “Flamenco and bullfighting are Spanish culture.” They are Andalusian in origin and loved by many, but a Galician, Catalan or Basque may feel no connection to them at all.
• “Spanish is spoken everywhere in the same way.” Around 40% of Spaniards live in regions with another co-official language.^•
  • Spanish Constitution (official English translation) — Cortes Generales, La Moncloa / Government of Spain (1978)
• “Spain is a conservative Catholic country.” It was, under Franco; today it is one of the most secular and socially liberal countries in Europe.^•
  • Barómetro de marzo 2026 (religiosidad) — Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, CIS (2026)