Development, contributions and trends in regional studies in Spain: An overview.

The aim of this paper is to show the development of regional and urban studies in Spain, pointing out the main factors that have influenced such development, the topics analysed by the Spanish researchers and why Spain has today a remarkable position in the field of regional science. Regional problems have always taken up a very important place among the concerns of the Spanish society. This has been closely linked to longstanding historical and internal political conflicts. But, leaving aside some very interesting contributions and territorial projects developed in the past, the research on regional issues emerged really in the 1960s and the consolidation phase took place from 1975 to 2000, as explained in Sections 2 and 3. From the beginning of this century the field has received a clear thrust, supported by a new generation of economists and geographers. The increasing presence of Spanish researchers in international congresses, workshops and specialized journals enable to state that Spain has reached a similar level as in more advanced countries. Section 4 collects the most outstanding topics and innovative contributions made from 2000 to now. A short final note (section 5) points out some final remarks and why a positive continuity of the progress observed can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]