For many years the Spanish monarchy and the dictatorships which followed (Primo de Rivera and Franco) maintained the position that Spain was a unified nation, the legacy of the Roman province, Hispania. In reality, Spain is and has long been quite divided. Currently, Spain is divided into eighteen regions, which are themselves composed of fifty provinces. Seventeen of those eighteen regions are officially designated as autonomous regions, though even the eighteenth, Navarre, operates as if it were just as autonomous as the rest. There are many proponents of this confederacy, however it does carry certain historical problems. Just as neither modern nor historical Spain were a single unit, the modern divisions also do not really work in the past. Nonetheless, modern Spain is more easily unde