Occupying most of the
Iberian Peninsula's land area (
approximately 85%), Spain is the third largest country in Europe and 45% is covered by the
Meseta Plateau.
That plateau is rarely flat, and is in reality a mostly hilly highland area divided by the
Cordillera Central (
mountains), and then ringed by additional mountain ranges, north, east and south. In the west the Meseta slopes gently down into neighboring
Portugal.
Significant mountains in Spain include the limestone
Cordillera Cantabrica and rugged
Sistema Iberico (
north); massive
Pyrenees (
northeast) where many peaks exceed 3,000 meters; the deeply eroded and rocky
Sierra de Cuenca (
east), and the lower
Montes de Toledo and
Serrania de Cuenca (
south-central).
In the far south the mountains of the
Cordillera Betica and
Sierra Nevada dominate the landscape. Mainland Spain's highest point (
Mulhacen at 3,481 meters) stands in the Sierra Nevada.
Significant lowlands include the fertile
Andalusian Plain in the southwest, and the
Ebro River Basin in the northeast. In addition, much of Spain is fronted by a low and narrow coastal plain, one that separates the mountains from the sea.
Those deeply indented coastal areas include countless bays and coves, and most have sandy beaches. In the far northwest, along the Bay of Biscay, rugged cliffs front the coastline.
In the far south, the
Strait of Gibraltar separates Spain and Europe from Morocco (Africa), and here, the two continents are only 13 km (8 miles) apart.
The country is drained by an estimated 1,500 rivers (
mostly small). The
longest and most significant riversinclude the Douro (
Duero), Ebro, Jucar, Tagus (
Tejo), Guadiana and Guadalquivir.
