THE BASQUE COUNTRY

The Basque Country or Euskadi, is a mountainous region in the north of Spain which stretches into parts of France and has a coastline on the bay of Biscay, the Costa Vasca. The Spanish part of the Basque Country is divided into three provinces, Vizcaya (Biscay), Guipuzcoa and Alava. The inhabitants of this region are fiercely independent and unlike people in other areas of Spain  they appear to have descended from a different race. Nobody is quite sure but it has been suggested that the original Basques descended from the Cro-Magnon people who inhabited the Pyrenees area about 40,000 years ago.  They have a unique language which is unlike any other in Europe, although the majority of the inhabitants now speak Spanish as their first language.  The location of the Basque Country in the remote mountain areas of the north, have isolated the Basque people over the centuries preserving the culture and language.  Since the arrival of democracy in Spain in 1976, the Basque's have  steadily gained autonomy over their own affairs.  They now have their own parliament and could one day become an independent country.  The last thirty years has seen a lot of upheaval with some groups trying to force Spain into granting independence.