Decline of Spain

The decline of Spain was the gradual process of financial and military exhaustion and attrition and suffered by metropolitan Spain throughout the 17th century, in particular when viewed in comparison with ascendant rival powers of France and England. The decline occurred during the reigns of the last kings of Habsburg Spain: Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II. Concurrent with the military and economic issues there was a depopulation in metropolitan Spain. The Spanish decline was a historical process simultaneous to the purported general crisis of the 17th century that swept most of Eurasia, but which was especially serious for Spain.

It was so debilitating that Spain went from being the hegemonic power in Europe, with the largest economy on the continent in the mid-1500s, to becoming a financially exhausted, second-rate power by the end of the 1600s. Contrary to metropolitan Spain there was not an equivalent decline in Spanish America where Spain successfully defended and consolidated its dominions, and both the cities and the general population grew.