Tarragona Cathedral

Tarragona (Catalan: [tərəˈɣonə], Spanish: [taraˈɣona]; Phoenician: טַרְקוֹן, Tarqon; Latin: Tarraco) is a city located in the south of Catalonia on the north-east of Spain, by the Mediterranean. It is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name. Geographically, it is bordered on the north by the province of Barcelona. The capital city has a population of 134,085 inhabitants.

The Middle Ages or Medieval period is a period in European history lasting from the 5th until the 15th centuries. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and was followed by the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the traditional division of Western history into Classical, Medieval, and Modern periods. The period is subdivided into the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages.

In the Early Middle Ages, depopulation, deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, which began in Late Antiquity, continued. The barbarian invaders formed new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), became an Islamic Empire after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with Antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Code of Justinian, was widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in western Europe. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, established an empire covering much of western Europe; the Carolingian Empire endured until the 9th century, when it succumbed to the pressures of invasion—the Vikings from the north, the Magyars from the east, and the Saracens from the south.

Spain (ⁱ/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union . It is located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. The border with Spain (1,214 km long) is the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union.