New book about the Basque Country keeps immigrants, descendents of the Basque diaspora and visitors in mind (and it’s free to download)

The Basque Government is offering a book designed for immigrants, descendents of the Basque diaspora and visitors. The book, called The Basque Country, is written in English and available in hard copy or electronically, as a .pdf download.

If you want to receive this publication in book format send us your postal address to the following e-mail: kulturabehatokia@ej-gv.es. Otherwise, follow this link to download the .pdf to your computer.

Immigrants who come to settle in Euskal Herria often spend many years before they begin to unravel even the most Basic aspects of their new society. One of the aims of this handbook is to help make their personal journey smoother and to promote communication between different groups of people.

The material provided here is based on the idea that a good part of the new long-term residents will become full Basque citizens with all rights, privileges and obligations, and will contribute their efforts and cultural heritage to enrich the society, workforce, culture and public treasury of the host country.

Another aim is to provide descendents of Basques who at one time emigrated to other countries – whom we refer to as Basques from the diaspora – with basic information on the country of their elders and a way of rediscovering their roots.

Lastly, this handbook is aimed at visitors who seek greater insight into the country than what is typically provided in a guidebook.

This is an educational handbook issued by the Basque Council on Culture (Consejo Vasco de la Cultura) for the purpose of providing background information on the Basque Country. The Basque Plan for Culture proposed the creation of an educational handbook containing the most important aspects of our culture, and to translate it into the principal languages of our immigrants, the diaspora and tourism.

Language, culture, arts and cultural services are given with a certain degree of detail. However, the picture would be incomplete without providing some information about our history, services and lifestyle (society, values, official institutions, economy, political system and government). This does not intend to be an in-depth piece of research and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Basque Government. Instead, it is a summary of an earlier book1, rewritten in handbook form.

The purpose is to provide readers with a general overview of Euskal Herria (the Basque Country). We also hope it will spark curiosity and encourage readers to take their own initiative to learn more about the subjects only just upon touched in this handbook.

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