Galicia

Galicia is an Semi-presidential constitutional republic located on the northwest Iberian Peninsula. It is comprised of 4 provinces: A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra, being bordered by Portugal to the south, Spain to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the north. It had a population of 3,765,940 in 2015 and has a total area of 29,574 km2 (11,419 sq mi). Galicia has over 1,660 km (1,030 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada, and—the largest and most populated—A Illa de Arousa.

The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and it takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic peoples living north of the Douro river during the last millennium BC, in a region largely coincidental with that of the Iron Age local Castro culture. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, being turned into a Roman province in the 3rd century AD. In 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga (Portugal) which was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. In 711, the Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula, taking the Visigoth kingdom, but soon in 740 Galicia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom of Asturias. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Galicia was occasionally ruled by its own kings, but most of the time it was leagued to the kingdom of Leon, until it's independence in the 12th century. From the 13th century on, the kings of Galicia, appointed an Adiantado-mór, whose attributions passed to the Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galiza from the last years of the 15th century. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, a royal tribunal and government body. From the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia, an institution which was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four administrative provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and for the recognition of the personality of Galicia, a demand which led to the 1912 July Revolution that toppled the Royal Family, and to the present constitution (1977), currently in force.

The interior of Galicia is characterized by its hilly landscape, although mountain ranges rise to 2000 m in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly an alternate series of rías (submerged valleys where the sea penetrates tens of kilometres inland) and cliffs. The climate of Galicia is temperate and rainy, but it is also markedly drier in the summer, being usually classified as Oceanic in the west and north, and Mediterranean in the southeast. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicia's wealth for most of its history. With the exception of shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was largely a semi-subsistence farming and fishing economy and did not experience significant industrialization until after the mid-twentieth century. In 2012, the gross domestic productgross domestic product at purchasing power parity was €73,000 million, with a nominal GDP per capita of €27,038. The population is largely concentrated in two coastal areas: from Ferrol to A Coruña in the northwest and from Pontevedra to Vigo in the southwest. To a lesser extent, there are smaller populations around the interior cities of Lugo, Ourense and Santiago de Compostela. The political capital is A Coruña, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the most populous city with 1,081,268, and A Coruña being the second most populous city with 619,800.

The main language used today in Galicia is overwelmingly the native Galician, a Romance language closely related to Portuguese with which it shares Galician-Portuguese medieval literature, while Spanish language, usually known locally as Castilian and Portuguese are used at a lesser extent. 96% of the Galician population speak more in Galician than in any other language, although roughly 70% of the population is Bilingual in either Spanish or Portuguese.

Etymology
The name Galicia derives from the Latin toponym Callaecia, later Gallaecia, related to the name of an ancient Celtic tribe that resided north of the Douro river, the Gallaeci or Callaeci in Latin, or Καλλαϊκoί (Kallaïkoí) in Greek. These Callaeci were the first tribe in the area to help the Lusitanians against the invading Romans. The Romans then applied their name to all the other tribes in the north west who spoke the same language and lived the same life.

Although the etymology of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors like Isidore of Seville —who wrote that "Galicians are called so, because of their fair skin, as the Gauls", relating the name to the Greek word for milk—, currently scholars derive the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European *kal-n-eH2 'hill', through a local relational suffix -aik-, so meaning 'the hill (people)'; or either from Proto-Celtic *kallī- 'forest', so meaning 'the forest (people)'. In any case, Galicia, being per se a derivation of the ethnic name Kallaikói, would mean 'the land of the Galicians'.

The name evolved during the Middle Ages from Gallaecia, sometimes written Galletia, to Gallicia. In the 13th century, with the written emergence of the Galician language, Galiza became the most usual written form of the name of the country, being replaced during the 15th and 16th centuries by the current form, Galicia, which coincides with the Castilian Spanish name. The historical denomination Galiza became popular again during the end of the 19th and the first three-quarters of the 20th century, being still used with some frequency today, although not by the Xunta de Galicia, the local devolved government. The Royal Galician Academy, the institution responsible for regulating the Galician language, whilst recognizing it as a legitimate current denomination, has stated that the only official name of the country is Galicia.

Municipal governments
There are 315 municipalities in Galicia, each of which is run by a mayor-council government known as a concello.

There is a further subdivision of local government known as an Entidade local menor; each has its own council xunta vecinal and mayor alcalde da aldea. There are nine of these in Galicia: Arcos da Condesa, Bembrive, Camposancos, Chenlo, Morgadans, Pazos de Reis, Queimadelos, Vilasobroso and Beran.

Administrative divisions
Prior to 1833 Galicia was divided into seven administrative provinces]]:


 * A Coruña
 * Santiago
 * Betanzos
 * Mondoñedo
 * Lugo
 * Ourense
 * Tui

From 1833, the seven original provinces of the 15th century were consolidated into four:


 * A Coruña, capital: Santiago de Compostela
 * Pontevedra, capital: Pontevedra
 * Ourense; capital: Ourense
 * Lugo; capital: Lugo

Galicia is further divided into 53 comarcas, 315 municipalities (93 in A Coruña, 67 in Lugo, 92 in Ourense, 62 in Pontevedra) and 3,778 parishes. Municipalities are divided into parishes, which may be further divided into aldeas ("hamlets") or lugares ("places"). It is estimated that Galicia has over a million named places, over 40,000 of them being communities.

Population
Galicia's inhabitants are known as Galicians. For well over a century Galicia has grown considerably faster than the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, due largely to immigration from Latin America and other parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Although Galicia has lost population in absolute terms in the past, most noticeably during WWI. Large amounts of Galician decedents have been recorded in places across the world, most noticeably in Brazil, the United States, New Duveland and in several European countries (most noticeably Spain and Portugal).

According to the 2006 census, Galicia has a fertility rate of 2.03 children per woman, just below the figure of 2.1 that represents a stable populace. Lugo province has the lowest fertility rates in the country, with a rate of just 1.76.

In northern Galicia, the A Coruña metropolitan area has become increasingly dominant in terms of population growth, growing faster than any other city per capita, however, the largest city Vigo, has been growing at a steadily rate for most of it's history, becoming the largest city in the country by far.

The rapid increase of population of A Coruña, Vigo and to a lesser degree other major Galician cities, like Ourense, Pontevedra or Santiago de Compostela during the years that followed the Spanish Civil War during the mid 20th century occurred as the rural population declined: many villages and hamlets of the four provinces of Galicia shrunk during the same period. Economic development and mechanization of agriculture resulted in the agricultural fields being abandoned, and most of the population has moving to find jobs in the main cities. The number of people working in the Tertiary and Quaternary sectors of the economy has increased significantly.