Geography of Spain

Spain is a country located in southwestern Europe occupying most (about 82 percent) of the Iberian Peninsula. It also 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 the small British territory of Gibraltar); to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. With a land area of in the Iberian peninsula, Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe (behind France), and the fourth largest country in the European continent (behind Russia, Ukraine, and France). It has an average altitude of 650 m. Its total area including Spanish island territories is of which is land and is water. It has the 30th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of . Spain lies between latitudes 27° and 44° N, and longitudes 19° W and 5° E. Its Atlantic coast is long. The Pyrenees mountain range extends from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay. In the extreme south of Spain's mainland lie the Straits of Gibraltar, which separate the Iberian peninsula and the rest of Europe from Ceuta and Morocco in North Africa. Most of Spain's boundaries are water: the Mediterranean Sea along the east from the French border down to Gibraltar and the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Atlantic Ocean on the northwest and southwest (in the south as the Gulf of Cádiz and in the north as the Bay of Biscay). The Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish enclaves lying in mainland Africa in territory claimed by Morocco and are located on the coast of the Alboran Sea, with Ceuta at the very mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar, and Melilla closer to the border with Algeria.