What year did Castille become "Spain"? ?

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SOC JO! A capite ad calcem

Historically, the Castilian Kingdom and people were considered to be the main architects of the Spanish State by a process of expansion to the South against the Muslims and of marriages, wars, assimilation, and annexation of their smaller Eastern and Western neighbours. From the advent of the Bourbon Monarchy following the War of the Spanish Succession until the arrival of parliamentary democracy in 1977, the Spanish language, often called castellano (Castilian) in Spanish, was the only one with official status in the Spanish State.

Originally an eastern county of the kingdom of LeÃ³n, in the 11th century Castile became an independent realm with its capital at Burgos and later Valladolid, and the leading force in the northern Christian states' 800-year Reconquista ("reconquest") of central and southern Spain from the Muslim rulers who had dominated most of the peninsula since the early 8th century.

The capture of Toledo in 1085 added New Castile to the crown's territories, and the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) heralded the Muslim loss of most of southern Spain. LeÃ³n was finally reunited with Castile in 1230, and the following decades saw the capture of CÃ³rdoba (1236), Murcia (1243) and Seville (1248). By the Treaty of AlcaÃ§ovas with Portugal on March 6, 1460, the ownership of the Canary Islands was transferred to Castile.

The dynastic union of Castile and Aragon in 1469, when Ferdinand II of Aragon wed Isabella of Castile, would eventually lead to the formal creation of Spain as a single entity in 1516 when their grandson Charles V assumed both thrones. See List of Spanish monarchs and Kings of Spain family tree.

Nowadays many people consider that the territory traditionally regarded as Castile corresponds to the Spanish autonomous communities of Cantabria, Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid and La Rioja although this territory was conquered by Castile's Crown and separated of the Navarrese Kingdom, as the Basque Country was. Other territories in the former Crown of Castile are left out for different reasons. In fact, the territory of the Castilian Crown actually comprised all other autonomous communities within Spain with the exception of Aragon, Balearic Islands, Valencia and Catalonia, which all belonged to the late Crown of Aragon, and Navarre, heir of the older Kingdom of the same name.

I, Clavdivs

Well, sonata arctica is right, but I want to comment a fact.

Castile and Aragon were united on 1469, by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand. However, until the war of succession Castile, Aragon and Navarre-Basque Country had their own laws and preserved their own language.

http://recursos.pnte.cfnavarra.es/~mzubicob/esp1492.jpg

The bourbon dinasty won the war, and the new king Philip V, between 1707 and 1716, signed a number of decrees called "Decretos de nueva planta", suppressed the non-castilian institutions and laws, and created Spain as we know it (with the exception of Basque country and Navarre, which remained with their own furs).

illidan_816

In 1469 Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile uniting Christian Space.

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