Why 70% of Spain is Empty

this is spain with more than 47 million people in an economy of well over 1.2 trillion us dollars spain is the world's 14th largest economy in one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world the spanish economy is only slightly smaller than russia's a country with only three times as many people and a lot more land and despite being only a medium-sized country itself spain has the second highest length of high-speed rail lines of any country in the world only lagging behind china not the per capita length of high-speed rail but the overall amount of it which is insane it means that despite only being around the same size as just california spain has more than five times the amount of high-speed rail lines as the entirety of the united states combined has thus it's incredibly easy to travel rapidly between all of spain's most major population centers clustered around madrid in the center and the mediterranean and atlantic coastlines in the south and the north but here's the strange part for europe spain is a big country it's nearly four times the size of england and yet england is home to nine million more people than spain is the population density of people in england is more than four and a half times the density of people that's seen in spain and that's largely true across the entirety of europe and the big reason why is because there's a lot of empty land in spain between madrid in the center and the big cities on the coasts where all those fancy high-speed rail lines connect to the land is pretty much empty of people almost everywhere forming this weird vacant donut-shaped population void throughout the entirety of the country's interior there is therefore the populated and developed spain that we're all aware of and have maybe traveled to like barcelona madrid or valencia and there's the empty and underdeveloped part of spain that most of us are woefully unaware of and the difference in population and area between these two sides of spain outside and within the donut void are genuinely enormous and potentially catastrophic for the entire country 90 of the spanish population more than 42 million people live within just 30 percent of the country's total land clustered around the big cities on the coasts and the notable anomalies of madrid and zargoza in the center and that means that just 10 of the spanish population where only about 4.7 million people live within the remaining 70 of the country's total land area within and around the empty donut shape the population density of this so-called empty part of spain that takes up 70 of the land is only about 18 people per square kilometer on average which is unparalleled anywhere else in western europe for comparison that's pretty much the same density of people in norway or the us state of kansas but then there are certain areas within empty spain that are substantially more empty than others one of these areas is here the seranya caltabarica region spanning across many of spain's internal provinces this area isn't small it's roughly the same size as the u.s state of west virginia or the republic of ireland and yet while those territories have populations of 1.8 million and 5 million people respectively the seranya cult america has little more than 503 000 residents there's only four localities throughout this entire region with a population of greater than 20 000 people and as a result the average population density throughout it is only about eight people per square kilometer about on a par with the u.s state of new mexico this makes the seranya caltabarica the second most sparsely populated region of the entire european union with even fewer people per square kilometer than either european russia or the scottish highlands the only region of the eu that's more sparsely populated and remote is the northernmost region of the scandinavian peninsula stretching up into the arctic circle lapland where the density is more between two and five people per square kilometer which shockingly isn't that much less than this big region in the middle of temperate spain which is why some people refer to it as the spanish lapland the area is so remote compared to the rest of western europe that for three out of four of the villages and towns within it it takes more than a 45 minute drive just to reach the nearest actual city a big part of the reason why this specific area is so devoid of people is because of the iberian system a medium-altitude mountain range that stretches right through the center of spain and the saranya cultivarica thus the steep geography the high average altitude and the resulting dispersion of population centers across the limited inhabitable valleys of the area are among several of the natural explanations for the surania celtibarica's relative underdevelopment this is further enhanced by the fact that within just a 100 kilometer radius of the iberian system mountains you'll find the very large population centers of madrid valencia zaragoza and bilbao and these are far from the only mountains that limit the expansion of settlements within the country there's also the cantabrian mountains in the northwest the pyrenees along the border with france the central system that cuts directly across the middle and the bedic system that slices across the southeast spain is a very mountainous country and as a result it has the second highest average elevation of countries within the european union only remaining behind austria which is largely covered by the alps but mountains alone do not explain the whole story austria and switzerland are both far more mountainous than spain is on average and yet they both are substantially more densely populated on average a lot of the further reasons why the spanish interior is so relatively empty is because of a long history of tragedies and centralized government policies over the past 50 years the rural regions of spain have lost 28 of their populations and the story that explains why begins back in the 1930s with the rise to power a francisco franco the spanish civil war was fought between the left-wing republicans and the right-wing nationalists for three years between 1936 and 1939 immediately prior to the second world war and the violence was devastating leaving around half a million people dead across the country franco emerged victorious and established a fascist-style dictatorship in spain closely connected to his civil war-era allies of nazi germany and fascist italy though he kept spain officially neutral throughout world war ii as a result his dictatorship survived the war and spain continued to effectively function as an authoritarian right-wing police state for decades until his death 30 years later in 1975 and because of that francoise era spain remained a sort of international pariah state that was relatively isolated for a long time spain didn't join the united nations until 1955 and didn't join the european economic community the precursor of the european union until 1986 decades after it was initially formed independent political parties and trade unions within the country during the dictatorship were banned and the country initially pursued an economic policy of otarchi aiming to become completely self-reliant in the aftermath of the wide-scale destruction from the civil war spain's economy remained stagnant for decades this situation generated a big exodus from spain of people who came into conflict with the regime or who were experiencing economic hardships and as a result spain experienced decades of net emigration out of the country during the post-war era but the real plummeting of the rural countryside began in 1959 after franco introduced the plan establishacion these were free market and industrial reforms that completely transformed the previously archaic and stagnant spanish economy almost overnight huge foreign investment came in and industrial areas around the basque country the northern coast barcelona and madrid exploded with development jobs and opportunities that attracted millions of eager young spaniards from across the countryside which gradually fell behind and became neglected to put the sheer pace of industrialization into context in 1946 just after world war ii the entire country of spain had only 72 000 private cars just 20 years later in 1966 there were well over a million cars within the country spain suddenly became the second fastest growing economy in the entire world during the 1960s lagging only behind japan following franco's death in the end of authoritarianism in 1975 many of those large numbers of emigres returned back to spain and mostly settled in the newly industrialized areas of the coast through madrid regardless of wherever they initially had come from and over the past 30 years since the early 1990s spain has experienced massive large-scale immigration from abroad for pretty much the first time ever in its history as of today more than 15 of the spanish population were born abroad the majority of whom were even born outside of europe largely from spain's own former colonies across latin america this makes spain the 4th most immigrated 2 country in europe and the 10th most in the world and again the vast majority of them have settled within the limited industrialized areas where there is the most opportunity for these reasons across the entire 20th century from 1900 to 2000 spain's population in total roughly doubled despite 11 of spain's mostly rural 50 provinces seeing an absolute decline in their overall populations and in recent times spain's population is hardly growing at all over the last decade between 2011 and 2021 the population of the country only grew by 0.12 percent the lowest decade of growth on record for spain since record-keeping began between 1833 and 1846. much of that is due to spain's incredibly low fertility rate which many demographers blame on spain's substantial lack of any serious family support policy of all the countries of western europe spain spends the least amount on family support limited to only 0.5 of gdp to put that into perspective a spanish family would need to have 57 children just in order to experience the same level of financial support that a family with only three children would receive in luxembourg these are all of the factors that have contributed to the long hollowing out of the rural part of spain over decades like the province of turuel a large amount of which is within the aforementioned seranya cult america just look at this chart of tyrul's population over time which remained fairly static until right here between 1960 and 1970 which was precisely when franco's industrialization program first took off now turewell has only half the amount of people that it had a century ago as tens of thousands emigrated away for better opportunities leaving behind their tiny villages where the living conditions were often difficult with cold winters high up in the mountains and only very basic amenities and infrastructure and that lack of investment into infrastructure here continues forty percent of the small population that remains in turial continues to lack any kind of internet broadband coverage and the province only has a single ultra slow train that travels at just 30 kilometers an hour through it which became a bit of a meme on spanish social media after this video showed even a tractor overtaking it and this is all a very far cry from the more developed parts of spain like madrid widely regarded as a major tech hub for the entire european continent with high-speed rail lines traveling 10 times faster than the slow moving train through turruel the lack of investment in infrastructure in these kinds of rural communities continues to make them less attractive places to live in and as they become less attractive less people live there and more move away and the even less attractive they become for investment it's all just a pretty vicious cycle and the spanish state has seemingly done very little to ever reverse the overall trend over the decades and thus this is how we've come to a point now where 90 of spain's population lives within just 30 percent of the land while the remaining scattered few of the 10 percent live within 70 of the land and the only way that spain can fix the problem in the future is inevitably going to be through increasing investments into developing the region to becoming actually attractive to live there once again investing intelligently is the simplest key to building a secure future for everyone from the scale of countries and regions down to the individual and fortunately for you you can explore some of your own personal investment decisions with public.com the sponsor of this video public is an investing app where you can invest in stocks exchange traded funds and crypto with any amount of money for free without any commissions as their name implies public is all about transparency which is 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 10,908,493

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, spain, empty spain

Id: pL8XPZp4-5c

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Inductee]

That empty land would be great for solar power generation, I bet even a fraction of it with solar panels would be enough to power most of Europe.

[u/Chiguito]

"a spanish family would need to have 57 children just in order to experience the same level of financial support that a family with only 3 children would receive in Luxemburg" min 10:50

[u/Brisbanebill]

Thanks this is a very interesting and informative video...

[u/Caiman08]

Hay zonas que son una maravilla pero por desgracia no hay trabajo en ellas. Igual en la nueva era del teletrabajo se les puede dar una nueva oportunidad.

En portales inmobiliarios encuentras casas espectaculares por 40/50k y menos, pero lo único que puedes hacer allí es sembrar tomates.

[u/SuzyReddit]

¡Interesante! Quizá se debería promocionar las zonas muy rurales como muy 'auténticas'/'originales'/'reales' / 'la España todavía como la de don Quijote' etc. para atraer turistas (que ya han visitado Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla y las Canarias) y estimular inversiones.

[u/omgwhattodo123]

Sorry, coundnt watch it , too dumb. So 70% is empty, basically due to hot climate (not suitable for regular agriculture) , and lack of water.... that's it ?