Economic history of Spain

This article covers the development of Spain's economy over the course of its history. Economy of Hispania Iberians, roughly located in the South and East, and Celts in the North and West of the Iberian Peninsula were the major earliest groups in what is now Spain (a third, so-called Celtiberian culture seems to have developed in the inner part of the Peninsula, where both groups were in contact). Carthaginians and Greeks also traded with Spain and established their own colonies on the coast. Spain's mineral wealth and access to metals made it an important source of raw material during the early metal ages. Carthage conquered parts of Iberia after the First Punic War. After defeating Carthage in the Second Punic War, the Romans governed all of the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, expanding and diversifying the economy and extending Hispanic trade with the greater Republic and Empire. While most of western Europe fell into a Dark Age after the decline of the Roman Empire, those kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula that today are known as Spain maintained their economy. First, the Visigoths replaced the Roman imperial administrators (an international class at the top echelons). They established themselves as nobility. The kingdom had some degree of centralized power at their capital, which was eventually moved to Toledo from Toulouse. The Roman municipal and provincial governorships continued but the imperial superstructure of diocese and prefecture was of course completely gone as there was no need for it: these had existed to coordinate imperial defense and provide uniform administrative oversight, and symbolized as nothing else, except the professional army, the presence of the Roman. Though it suffered some decline, most Roman law and many physical infrastructures such as roads, bridges, aqueducts, and irrigation systems, was maintained to varying degrees, unlike the complete disintegration that occurred in most other former parts of the western empire with the exception of parts of Italy.