Iberian Peninsula

A peninsula in southwestern Europe containing Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Pyrenees.

Pyrenees: A mountain range forming much of the border between Spain and France. They create the peninsula’s main land connection to the rest of Europe.
Iberians: Ancient peoples who inhabited parts of the eastern and southern Iberian Peninsula before Roman rule. Their name became the basis for the peninsula’s enduring geographic name.
Lusitanians: An ancient people of western Iberia, known chiefly through Roman accounts and resistance to Roman expansion. They are among the best-known pre-Roman peoples associated with Portugal and western Iberia.
Portuguese maritime expansion: Portugal’s fifteenth- and sixteenth-century exploration, trade, and establishment of overseas territories. Portugal’s Atlantic coast helped launch a sustained oceanic expansion.
Meseta Central: A high plateau occupying much of central Spain. Its elevation and surrounding ranges shape the peninsula’s central drainage and climate.
Roman Hispania: The Roman territories established across much of the Iberian Peninsula. Roman rule reshaped Iberian languages, cities, law, and infrastructure.
Visigoths: A Germanic people whose kingdom ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula before the Muslim conquest. Their kingdom formed the peninsula’s dominant political order immediately before al-Andalus.
Spanish Empire: A global empire ruled by Spain from the late fifteenth century into the twentieth century. It grew from the peninsula’s unification of dynastic power and Atlantic access.
Ebro: A river in northeastern Spain that flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Its basin drains a large northeastern region of the peninsula.
Al-Andalus: The territories of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslim rulers from the eighth century onward. Its centuries of rule transformed Iberian politics, architecture, and scholarship.

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