Capital: Madrid
Area: 505,990 km²
Population: 39.6 million (December 2000 est.)
Ethnic groups: Castilians, Asturians, Andalusians, Catalans, Basques, Galicians, and persons from the Canary Islands and Valencia
Official language(s): Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Galician, and Basque
Religion(s): Roman Catholic
Currency: 1 euro = 100 cents
SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country
In the 1960s Montserrat Andreu familiarized herself with the work of SOS Children's Villages through various newspaper articles and visits to Germany. In 1967, after a meeting with Hermann Gmeiner, the founder of SOS Children's Villages, she set up an association in Barcelona with the aim of establishing an SOS Children's Village in Catalonia. Shortly thereafter, construction work began on SOS Children's Village San Feliú de Codines, 30 km north of Barcelona. A few years later, inspired by the work in Catalonia, Rita Regojo initiated the building of an SOS Children's Village in her native Galicia in the Northwest of Spain.
In 1980 King Juan Carlos I granted Hermann Gmeiner an interview, which laid the foundation for country-wide SOS Children's Villages work. In the following year, during the honorary chairmanship of crown prince Felipe of Bourbón, Prince of Astoria, SOS Children's Villages Spain was founded, which since then has been responsible for the SOS Children's Village work in the country. Subsequently, additional SOS Children's Villages were established on the Spanish mainland and on the Canary Islands. In order to be able to better meet the needs of the children, youths and families, SOS Social Centres came into being in all locations, offering their numerous programmes not only to SOS Children's Villages' children and youths but also to children and youths who live in the vicinity of an SOS Children's Village. For several years now the Spanish SOS Children's Village Association has also been supporting SOS Children's Villages' projects outside its own country.
At present there are eight SOS Children's Villages, seven SOS Youth Facilities, eight SOS Social Centres and one SOS Vocational Training Centre in Spain.