Cantabria

This article is about the Spanish community of Cantabria. For residents of Cambridge, see Cantabrigian. For other uses, see Cantabria (disambiguation).

Cantabria
Autonomous community and province
Cantabria (in Spanish)
Flag of Cantabria (Official).svg
Flag
Coat-of-arms of Cantabria
Coat of arms
Anthem: Himno a la Montaña
(in English: Anthem to the Mountain)
Map of Cantabria
Location of Cantabria within Spain
Coordinates: 43°20′N 4°00′W / 43.333°N 4.000°W / 43.333; -4.000
CountrySpain
Formation574 (Duchy of Cantabria)
739 (Union with Asturias)
1778 (Province of Cantabria)
1833 (Province of Santander)
1982 (Autonomous Community)
Statute of Autonomy1 February 1982
CapitalSantander
Government
 • TypeDevolved government in a constitutional monarchy
 • BodyGobierno de Cantabria
 • PresidentMaría José Sáenz de Buruaga (PP)
Area
 • Total5,321 km2 (2,054 sq mi)
 • Rank15th (1.05% of Spain)
Population
 (2018)[1]
 • Total580,229
 • Pop. rank
16th
 • Percent
1.26% of Spain
GDP
[2]
 • Total€15.354 billion (2022)
 • Per capita€26,167 (2022)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 code
ES-CB[3]
Area code+34 942 a
Official languagesSpanish
Statute of Autonomy11 January 1982
ParliamentParliament of Cantabria
Congress5 deputies (out of 350)
Senate5 senators (out of 265)
HDI (2021)0.905[4]
very high · 8th
WebsiteGobierno de Cantabria
Map

Cantabria (/kænˈteɪbriə/,[5] also UK: /-ˈtæb-/;[6][7] Spanish: [kanˈtaβɾja] ⓘ) is an autonomous community and province in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a comunidad histórica, a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy.[8] It is bordered on the east by the Basque autonomous community (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea, which forms part of the Bay of Biscay.

Cantabria belongs to Green Spain, the name given to the strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains, so called because of its particularly lush vegetation, due to the wet and temperate oceanic climate. The climate is strongly influenced by Atlantic Ocean winds trapped by the mountains; the average annual precipitation is about 1,200 mm (47 inches).

Cantabria has archaeological sites from the Upper Paleolithic period, although the first signs of human occupation date from the Lower Paleolithic. The most significant site for cave paintings is in the cave of Altamira, dating from about 37,000 BCE[9] and declared, along with nine other Cantabrian caves, as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Historically, the territory sits in the area of Cantabria in the ancient period, but from the late Middle Ages to the early 19th century, the name Cantabria also referred to the territory of the Basques, especially the lordship of Biscay.[citation needed]

The modern province of Cantabria was constituted on 28 July 1778 at Puente San Miguel, Reocín. The yearly Day of the Institutions holiday on 28 July celebrates this. The Organic Law of the Autonomy Statute of Cantabria, approved on 30 December 1981, gave the region its own institutions of self-government.[10]

  1. ^ Municipal Register of Spain 2018. National Statistics Institute.
  2. ^ "Contabilidad Regional de España" (PDF). www.ine.es.
  3. ^ "ISO 3166-2 NEWSLETTER Date issued: 2010-02-03 No II-1 Corrected and reissued 2010-02-19" (PDF). Iso.org. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  4. ^ "Sub-national HDI - Area Database - Global Data Lab". hdi.globaldatalab.org. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  5. ^ "Cantabria". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  6. ^ "Cantabria". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 18 January 2020.
  7. ^ Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 3-12-539683-2
  8. ^ (in Spanish) "La Ley Orgánica 11/1998, de 30 de diciembre, de reforma de la LO 8/1981, del Estatuto de Autonomía para Cantabria (BOE 31 diciembre 1998) Archived December 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. El Estatuto deja de referirse a Cantabria como "entidad regional histórica", expresión empleada por la propia Constitución (art. 143) para permitir la existencia de comunidades uniprovinciales, para ser sustituida por la expresión "comunidad histórica" (art. 1). Sinopsis del Estatuto de Cantabria Archived 11 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine Ignacio Carbajal Iranzo, Letrado de las Cortes Generales. Updated by Portal de la Constitución. 2005. Updated 2007; retrieved 9 June 2007.
  9. ^ Pike, A. W. G.; Hoffmann, D. L.; García-Diez, M.; P. B., Pettitt; Alcolea, J.; Balbín, R. De; González-Sainz, C.; Heras, C. De Las; Lasheras, J. A.; Montes, R.; Zilhão, J. (15 June 2012). "U-series dating of Paleolithic art in 11 caves in Spain". Science. 336 (6087): 1409–1413. Bibcode:2012Sci...336.1409P. doi:10.1126/science.1219957. PMID 22700921. S2CID 7807664.
  10. ^ "Sinopsis del Estatuto de Cantabria" [Synopsis of the Statute of Cantabria] (in Spanish). congreso.es. Retrieved 5 April 2016.