The Spanish are seafaring and religious. They start the game with Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial and build Conquistadors instead of explorers. The Kingdom of Spain is located in the extreme southwest of the European continent, and occupies approximately 85-percent of the Iberian Peninsula. Spain is bordered on the west by Portugal, in the Northeast by France, and by the great wall of the Pyrenees Mountains. The Iberian Peninsula that the Spanish inhabited was occupied by various other civilizations, including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, and Muslims, and Spain is now associated with having a very rich, eclectic culture as a result. The development of Christian society and culture in the first 300 years following Islamic conquest in Spain was slow, but major changes occurred for the Spanish in the 12th and 13th centuries. The population grew, communication with northern Europe intensified, commerce and urban life gained in importance, and the kingdoms of the Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, and Portugal emerged as the governing bodies of the Iberian Peninsula. These kingdoms reached the frontiers that they would keep, with minimum amount of alteration, until the end of the Middle Ages, when Isabella I became Queen of Castile. Isabella began participating in the royal court at the age of 13; and when Portugal, Aragon, and France offered their marriage candidates, she favored Ferdinand of Aragon. Isabella ascended to the throne as Queen of Castile to rule sensibly and with a prudent political program. Her unification of the states of the Iberian Peninsula into a single entity, the maintenance and control over the Strait of Gibraltar, policy of expansion into Muslim North Africa, reform of Spanish Catholicism, and support for the exploration and expansion in the unknown was evidence of her wisdom and capabilities as Queen. On October 12, 1492 Columbus, with the blessing and financial backing of Isabella, sought a route to the legendary rich markets of China and Japan, but instead discovered what would become known as "The New World", the present day Americas. This voyage gave way to a new golden age of expeditions and conquest, as the Americas contained gold, a valuable resource that Spain happened to be desperately bereft of at the time.