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"Spain, to say the least, has been around a very long time ~ Trajan, the Roman Emperor, was a Spaniard."

By 800 B.C., the Phoenicians were founding colonies on the Iberian Peninsula such as Gadir (today's Cadiz) and Almuñécar. Though they called the region "i-shaphan-im", these individual city/colonies, were no more in "Spain" than Athens was in "Greece".

When Rome destroyed Carthage, it took the land and called it Hispania. It was a province, and Trajan would have considered himself a Roman, albiet from the province Hispania. But there still was no country called Spain. The Visigoths, Vandals and Alans fought over the place next, with various kingdoms occupying various parts of the peninsula from about 400 to 718 when the Moors drove the Visigoths to the north. Then the land was split into kingdoms like Asturias and Galacia, and the Omayyad Emirate of Cordova. Later, there were the Kingdoms of Navarre, Castile, Aragon and Grenada.

Not until 1492 did Spain was we know it today come into being. Even then, it was called The Crown of Aragon or Aragonese Empire. By 1512, most of the kingdoms of present-day Spain were politically unified. The region was known as "Spain" (España). It was a geographic term that was more or less synonymous with Iberia, not the present-day state called Spain. There was no "King of Spain" until 1837.

Not quite sure what point you are trying to make. Usually you guys try arguing that the Visigothic Kingdoms were some sort of superpower.

As everybody knows the Galicians controlled ALL of the North Coast and most of the West Coast of the Iberian peninsula. Celt-Iberians controlled the interior. A variety of other people controlled other sites, and depending on the ebb and flow of fortune and disease, different regions dominated at different times.

However, the use of the word "Spain" is an affectation in the English language that allows us to refer to what is quite clearly a socio-political region as well as a geographical expression.

You can call it Iberia or whatever you wish, but we all know where it's at.

And no, the Visigothic Kingdoms weren't really serious entitites ~ Galicia, though was, as were the three states founded by King San Cho Noe I ~ Castile, Leon and Carvajal.

Together, through time, those three states wrested "Spain" from the hands of the Moors and others, and all of that was done without the assistance of the English.