Berkley Center

Eliza Doolittle, played by Audrey Hepburn, in the 1964 film rendition of My Fair Lady made famous the phrase “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” After spending three months in the country, I have deduced that this statement is true, but due in large part to the fact that the majority of Spain’s terrain is plains!

While in the bustling city of Madrid, or even in the calmer student city of Salamanca, it is hard to believe that just beyond the city boundaries are vast spans of green plains. In fact, during the two-and-a-half-hour bus ride between the two cities, you will not see much else aside from large stretches of green land, sprinkled with cows and sheep, with striking views of hills and mountains in the far distance. This has been the case for many of my travels within Spain; on the train ride to Barcelona and the bus ride into Trujillo, all I saw for miles on end was an immense countryside.

I have reflected on this with other students from the United States who also found Spain’s urban-rural ratio intriguing. We found it odd that there was no apparent in-between—that in Spain there exists two extremes: busy, populated cities and quiet, seemingly deserted plains. My initial reaction was to question why no one was making use of all of the land, to either expand their cities or to build farms and cultivate crops. I know that my American perspective is the reason that seeing so much “unused and therefore wasted” land shocked me. Capitalism, especially in the United States, promotes innovation and modernization for the sake of progress (and profit). I also recognize that what I am seeing of Spain is what tourists see: pueblos (small towns) of course exist in Spain, but are typically much less trafficked by foreigners.

Having taken my American bias into account, the truth remains that Spain is and historically has always been a predominantly rural country. Spain was one of the last countries in Europe to begin industrializing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. And even now in 2015, it is evident that the country is still in the process of development and industrialization.

The following data and statistics were drawn from Spain’s country profile on CIA World Facebook:

Spain is made up of 498,980 square kilometers of land; of this land, only approximately 25 percent is arable land, good for planting and cultivating crops. Agricultural production accounts for merely 3.2 percent of Spain’s Gross Domestic Product. Of the 22.93 million currently in the labor force, only 2.9 percent are employed in agricultural production. As for Spain’s industry (that includes the production of textiles and apparel, metals, shipbuilding, automobiles and tourism among others), it accounts for only 25.4 percent of the GDP and 15 percent of the labor force. Spain’s industrial production growth rate is actually negative! The growth rate calculated for 2014 was -0.3%. That is to say that Spain has not made significant industrial progress, which is likely a result of the economic crisis the country suffered from 2008 to 2014. As the country recovers from the effects of the financial crisis, a common hope is for Spanish industry to reactivate and develop further, in turn creating more employment opportunities. Spain currently has an unsettlingly high unemployment rate of 53.2 percent.

It will be interesting to follow Spain’s recovery process and see what steps will be taken with respect to the further development of Spanish industry and perhaps a more efficient use of land. For now, the plains of Spain will continue to be a lovely landscape for the enjoyment of tourists and travelers.