Geography of Spain Geography of Spain Spain is a country located in southwestern Europe occupying most (about 85 percent) of the Iberian Peninsula and includes a small exclave inside France called Llívia as well as the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off northwest Africa, and five places of sovereignty ("plazas de soberanía") on and off the coast of North Africa: Ceuta, Melilla, Islas Chafarinas, Peñón de Alhucemas, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. The Spanish mainland is bordered to the south and east almost entirely by the Mediterranean Sea (except for a small land boundary
Canary Islands La Gomera around 1450. Royal conquest ("Conquista realenga"). This defines the conquest between 1478 and 1496, carried out directly by the Crown of Castile, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, who armed and partly financed the conquest of those islands which were still to unconquered: Gran Canaria, La Palma and Tenerife. This phase of the conquest came to an end in the year 1496, with the dominion of the island of Tenerife, bringing the entire Canarian Archipelago under the control of the Crown of Castile. Béthencourt also established a base on the island of La Gomera, but it would