Welcome to Spain
EuroCurrency in Spain
Today’s Weather
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Monday
Basic Country Profile
Location: South West Europe
Capital: Madrid
Population: 47 million
Major language: Spanish, Catalan, Basque
Major religion: Christianity
Currency: Euro
Climate: Mediterranean in the coastal areas, continental elsewhere
Terrain: Mostly flat plains
Dial code: +34 Time
Zone: GMT+1
Emergency numbers:
Universal emergency number – 112
Police – 091
Ambulance – 061
Firefighters – 080
Local police – 092
Disability Legislations and Policies
8.5% of Spanish population have a disability and social integration of persons with disabilities. Only 35% of people with disabilities in Spain are employed. In 2007, Spain ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Spain passed a new law in 2013 based on the premise that universal accessibility helps guarantee equal opportunities and treatment for people with disabilities. This legislation made homeowner associations responsible for ensuring their buildings are accessible to all people, and set December 2017 as the deadline to eliminate barriers. But a March 2018 report by the UNESCO Chair on Housing and the Fundación Mutuade Propietarios found that only 0.6 percent of Spain’s 9.8million residential buildings meet accessibility standards for people with mobility disabilities.
Travel Related Information
Spain is not overly accommodating for travellers with disabilities, but some things are slowly changing. For example, disability access to some museums, official buildings and hotels represents a change in local thinking.
In major cities more is slowly being done to facilitate disability access to public transport and taxis; in some cities, wheelchair-adapted taxis are Called ‘Eurotaxis’.
Newly constructed hotels in most areas of Spain are required to have wheelchair accessible rooms. With older places, you need to be a little wary of hotels who advertise themselves as being disabled-friendly, as this can mean as little as wide doors to rooms and bathrooms, or other token efforts.