Culturally, Spain is a Western country. Because of the great strength of the Roman heritage in almost every aspect of Spanish life, Spain is often described as a Latin country. Nevertheless, there have been many influences on many aspects of Spanish life, from art and architecture to cuisine and music, from many countries across Europe and from around the Mediterranean, through its long history.
Literature
Due to historic, geographic and generational diversity, Spanish literature has known a great number of influences and it is very diverse. Some major literary movements can be identified within it.
Miguel de Cervantes is probably Spain's most famous author and his Don Quixote is considered the most emblematic work in the canon of Spanish literature and a founding classic of Western literature.
See also: Catalan literature, Basque literature, Galician-language literature, and Latin American literature
Language institutions
The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española or RAE) is the institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, but is affiliated with national language academies in 21 Spanish-speaking nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies.
With the same policy, the Royal Galician Academy (Real Academia Galega or RAG, in Galician) was created in 1906 in A Coruña with the help of Havana emigrated Galicians. Its work is based in a Lexicography (the main results are the official and standard Dicionario da Real Academia and the Vocabulario ortográfico da lingua galega), Terminology (through Termigal since 1997), Sociolinguistics, Onomastics and Grammar approaches from the Linguistics point of view, and another two sections for History and Literature. The Academy works closely with the government as an advice institution, and its resolutions are almost binding about language standard. It had though recently demonstrated criticism about the
