FACTBOX: Key facts about Spain

(Reuters) - Spain holds a parliamentary election on Sunday after a close campaign marked increasingly by a darkening economic outlook and the end of a housing boom.

Here are some key facts about Spain:

GEOGRAPHY: Area 504,782 sq km (194,900 sq miles) including the Balearic and Canary Islands and the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa.

-- Spain occupies the bulk of the Iberian peninsula, which it shares with Portugal to the west. It is bounded to the north by the Atlantic Ocean and France, to the east by the Mediterranean, and to the south by the Straits of Gibraltar. On its southern tip is Gibraltar, a British colony.

-- Spain is divided into 17 autonomous regions.

POPULATION: 45.1 million (2007).

LANGUAGE: The main official language is Castilian Spanish, while 30 percent also speak one of the three official regional languages of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia.

CAPITAL: Madrid (2003 population: 5.1 million).

RELIGION: The majority of Spaniards are Catholic (95.2 percent). There is a small Muslim population (1.2 percent)