Galicia, is an autonomous community in northwest Spain, with the status of a nationality of Spain. It is constituted under the Galician Statute of Autonomy of 1981. Its component provinces are A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra. It is bordered by Portugal to the south, the Spanish regions of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Bay of Biscay to the north.
Besides its continental territory, Galicia includes the archipelagos of Cíes, Ons, Sálvora, as well as Cortegada Island, the Malveiras Islands, Sisargas Islands, and Arousa Island.
Galicia has roughly 2.78 million inhabitants as of 2008, with the largest concentration in two coastal areas, from Ferrol to A Coruña in the north-west and from Vilagarcía to Vigo in the south-west. The capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the most populous municipality with 297,332 inhabitants and the second most populous city with 206,411 habitants; while A Coruña is the most populous city with 220,581 habitants and the second most populous municipality with 246,056 habitants in its municipality (INE 2009). Both cities are the cores of the two major metropolitan areas of Galicia.
Galicia has its own historic language, Galician, a Romance language that, along with Portuguese, descends from medieval Galician-Portuguese.
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