Spain, with the full name the kingdom of Spain, is a country situated at the southwest of Europe, lies at the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal. It is connected with France and Andorra by the northeast, with an area of 505.9 thousand square kilometers, only smaller than France, ranked 2nd in Europe.
Spain has a long history, it is very famous for arts, is the 2nd largest country with the number of the world culture heritage. Spain is a country with abundant resource and developed economics, also the main production place for grapes, olive and tangerine. There are many sardines along the seaside. The tourism in Spain is highly developed, with a title of “tourist kingdom”. Barcelona became the pearl of Spain because of Gaudi and football. Valencia is the third largest city of Spain, you can enjoy the Mediterranean sunshine peacefully there.
Spain is the heaven for delicious food, every region has its famous eating culture. Spain has a lot of potatoes, tomatoes, spice, olives. The food in Spain is a combination of western south and north, with many kinds of food and a special taste. The main food covers cod, Iberian ham, wine, shimp, mussle, cocido madrileno etc. The famous Spanish fried squid is made by spinach, lamb and cheese, then put into the oven, the taste is very delicious. It is also good with the drinks. Fruit and dessert are also the important food for Spanish, such as apple roll, almond cake etc.
Spain is the 10th largest immigration country of the world. It is shown by the survey from the United Nations on 2013, by June 2013, there are about 6.5 million immigrants living in Spain, with 14% of the total population of Spain. Since 1990, Spain went into an immigration era, with around 6 million people moving to Spain. It is only less than USA (23 million) and UAE (7 million), took the 3rd place of the world. So what becomes Spain the dream place for people? Let us look at three main areas --- education, medical condition and housing.
First of all let’s talk about education. As a traditional capitalist country, its education system is similar as other EU countries. All the students under 16 have to attend school, and the first foreign language is English. There are 29167 primacy and secondary schools in Spain, and there are 90 foreign students in every 1000 students at the primary schools. Also in Spain there are 50 public universities and 29 private universities, it also has three famous business schools (IE, IESE, ESADE). In literature, construction and drawing, the Spanish universities are quire excellent. Picasso, Dali, Gaudi and Cervantes all come from Spain. They are world-famous artists, also there were 6 Spanish had won the Nobel laureates in Literature. The primary and secondary schools in Spain are all free, after 16 years old students can choose to further study, which is similar as school of higher professional technology, but they don’t need to take college entrance examination. The education in this level is highly connected with employment. Since 2013, the universities in Spain has Bologna transform, they will take the standard mode of European Higher Education, which is 4 years of undergraduate and 1-2 years of postgraduate, and 4 years for Ph.D. The diploma is admitted all over the world. Without expensive sponsorship fee, without household register, without expensive school district housing, without fitting many conditions, one can have the treatment of international kindergarden, which is quite different compared with our environment.
After education, let’s talk about the healthcare system in Spain. Spain has world-class healthcare system, no matter public or private hospitals, they all have very high standard. Every district in Spain even the street office, there will be a medical center, every person in Spain will be given a general doctor. It is all free and solve the problem of going to see the doctor. Hospital and pharmacy is separated, the hospital has government grant, the doctor directs some medicine to patient has nothing to do with his salary. It is surprised that every hospital has translator, so the immigrants won’t have any problem because of the language.
Lastly let’s talk about the house, which is the question most immigrants care about. Because of the affect of European financial crisis, in the past 5 years, the housing price had dropped about 70% compared with before. If calculated in RMB, in the most expensive city Bilbao the housing price is just 20 thousand RMB. In Madrid, Barcelona, the average housing price is just 10 thousand RMB. Compared with China, the housing price in Spain is similar as the housing price in small Chinese cities. Compared with our country’s 70 years housing usage policy, the housing in Spain is permanent, which is completely protected by law. If the country needs to demolish or take over, they have to ask for the landlord’s permission, and will pay a high compensation fee. If the landlord doesn’t agree, then the country can’t even paint on his house, not to say take over. Also, with the initially issue of housing immigration policy, the housing in Spain will become more and more valuable to invest.
Apart from the hardware condition, Spain is also the best living country with regards to the climate condition. With more than 300 days sunshine, the Mediterranean climate, the average temperature between 5 to 26, people are cheerful and friendly, they have similar eating habit as us, they also like rice, pork and seafood. If one can purchase a villa in Spain, to feel the sea breeze and enjoy the Spanish delicious food, that’s a great thing in life.
The city emblem in Madrid, Spain is a bear standing to eat the strawberry. It is the biggest city in Spain. It has beautiful see-sight, full of sunshine, and fresh air, the sunshine days is on top of the European capitals.
The modern Madrid is a modern city. 10% of Spanish gross industrial output value came from Madrid’s manufacturing product, chemical industry, construction, leather and wood processing, food etc.
Madrid is also the center for finance and commerce. It’s one of the famous culture cities in south Europe, with deep culture tradition. However the modern culture center of Spain has been replaced by Barcelona.
Barcelona is the second largest city of Spain, the Barcelona seaport is the biggest port around Mediterranean and the biggest container harbor, and also the biggest general port in Spain.
bsp;However the modern culture center of Spain has been replaced by Barcelona.
This city is full of roman style, with medieval period city, pretty modern type and products from 20 century’s pioneers. It becomes a world-class city, with the reputation of “European flower”. Barcelona has typical Mediterranean climate, with sunshine all over the year, and lots of flowers, it doesn’t like Madrid which has typical four different seasons.
The transportation is Barcelona is very convenient, the metro is highly linked, and bus is not that crowd, the sports are quite common in Barcelona and the close areas. Within the city or the places which can be arrived by bus with several hours, people can play golf, tennis, swimming, water ski, sailing, hunting, fishing, riding a horse and winter activities, there are many entertainment in cities.
