Placing Spanish plazas

By Linda Hall

INSIDE Spain itself, more than 20 town, village and city squares bear the name Plaza de España.

But there are even more worldwide, beginning with the Place d’Espagne-Spanjeplein in central Brussels.  The square is watched over by statues of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, in homage to the Spanish language.

Rome has its Piazza di Spagna, named for the palace, which was built on the orders of the Spanish king, Fernando el Catolico in 1480.  It now houses Spain’s embassy to the Vatican.

Still in Europe, Lisbon in Portugal has its Praça de Espanha. In Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Balkans, Mostar’s Plaza España pays homage to the 22 Spanish soldiers and an interpreter who died on active duty while stationed with the Nato mission there.

In Africa, Tetuan (Morocco) and Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) each have a Plaza de España. There is another, even further afield in Agaña in Guam.  This island in the Western Pacific now belongs to the US but was a Spanish possession until it was surrendered in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Across the Atlantic, Miami Beach in Florida has a Plaza de España, while south of the border, Mexico has a total of five.  

Argentina has six squares bearing Spain’s name, but Chile has only one.  So too does La Paz (Bolivia), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Arequipa (Peru) and Montevideo (Uruguay) and Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic).