Cultural Climate Change Across Spain

The broad stereotypes of the cold Northerners and the warm Southerners are so readily accepted both within and without Spain – and not entirely without reason. They talk of a conservatism which finds its place in those more northern communities; a conservatism perhaps caused by the winters that these regions verily endure year after year. As for the southerners, however, whose presence is graced by the sun very nearly every day of the year, we talk of an amicable people who have grown accustomed to a steadily paced lifestyle. These broad and somewhat grandiloquent generalisations of the Spanish climate are roughly true, and understandably so – inland regions are more likely to suffer the bitter frost than coastal ones, and the closer to the equator the hotter the summer. But, are these descriptions just as truthfully attributed to the Spanish people? Are the Spanish northerners a toughened people? Are the southerners really friendlier?

A similar sort of blanket statement is regularly pulled over Italy where they say that the abruptness of the northerners is notably contrasting in all aspects of life to the way of the southerners. Whilst in Spain the North-South divide is nothing in respect of the magnitude of Italy’s split, there is undoubtedly something of an unmarked border between the north and the south in existence. The south of Spain is a poorer land suffering the highest rates of unemployment and enduring, in places, an outdated infrastructure. The north, by contrast, is relatively well developed, more affluent, and the stronghold of the country’s economy.

Talking in such distinct accents (and occasionally entirely different dialects, even languages) and walking very distinct walks of life, perhaps it is of no surprise that the Spanish Northerners and Southerners come across so differently. Perhaps, having grown up in the United Kingdom, it is a bit rich of me to talk of cold mannerisms when it is verily true that, as cold as they say the Spanish Northerners are, Spanish culture as a whole is a lot warmer than that of the northern Europeans.