What if Spain never existed?

The world would look very different.
– 500+ million people wouldn’t speak Spanish. No shared linguistic bridge between Europe and most of Latin America
– There would be no Latin American identity as we know it. No cultural fusion of Iberian, Indigenous, and African roots shaping music, food, and politics
– No reggaeton. No global rise of artists like Shakira or Bad Bunny redefining mainstream music in Spanish
– Europe would never have embraced tomatoes, potatoes, cacao, or peppers the same way. Italian cuisine without tomatoes? Say grazie amici Italiani.
– No 'el Clásico'. The rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona shaped modern football’s global narrative
– Around half of today’s olive oil production disappears. Spain dominates the global supply chain
– The Americas wouldn’t be “America” in the geopolitical sense we understand. Borders, languages, religions, and power structures would have evolved differently
– No Manila Galleons linking Asia and the Americas for 250 years. Global trade routes would shift
– No Spanish Golden Age. Cervantes, Velázquez, and a massive literary and artistic legacy erased
- The Pope would not have divided the new world between Portugal and Spain in 1494
Spain wasn’t just another European kingdom. It was a launchpad for language, religion, trade, agriculture, and empire.
Remove it from history and you don’t get a smaller world. You get a completely different one.