Autonomous communities of Spain

first-level political and administrative division of Spain
(Redirected from Autonomous community)

Spain is divided in 17 parts called autonomous communities. Autonomous means that each of these autonomous communities has its own executive, legislative, and judicial powers. These are similar to, but not the same as, states in the United States of America, for example.

Spain has fifty smaller parts called provinces. In 1978 these parts came together, making the autonomous communities. Before then, some of these provinces were together but were broken. The groups that were together once before are called "historic communities": Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia and Andalusia.

The Spanish language is the sole official language in every autonomous community but six, where Spanish is co-official with other languages, as follows:

List of the autonomous communities, with their Capital city (the place where the government has its offices):

Spain also has two cities on the north coast of Africa: Ceuta and Melilla. They are called "autonomous cities" and have simultaneously the majority of the power of an autonomous community and also power of provinces and power of municipalities.