Unification of Spain

The history of Spain dates to contact between the pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula with the Greeks and Phoenicians.^¹ During Classical Antiquity, the peninsula was the site of multiple successive colonizations of Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans.^¹ Native peoples of the peninsula, such as the Tartessos, intermingled with the colonizers to create a uniquely Iberian culture.^¹ The Romans referred to the entire peninsula as Hispania, from which the name "Spain" originates.^¹ As was the rest of the Western Roman Empire, Spain was subject to numerous invasions of Germanic tribes during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, resulting in the end of Roman rule and the establishment of Germanic kingdoms, marking the beginning of the Middle Ages in Spain.^¹