Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the context of "Basilica of St. John"

Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative (especially in the Holy Land) and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.

The Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela (Latin: Archidioecesis Compostellana) is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Spain. It is the most senior of the five districts into which the church divides the region of Galicia.

The seat of the archdiocese is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, dedicated to the Apostle James.

Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route since the 9th century. In 1985, the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Santiago de Compostela has a very mild climate for its latitude with heavy winter rainfall courtesy of its relative proximity to the prevailing winds from Atlantic low-pressure systems.

The Camino de Santiago (Latin: Peregrinatio Compostellana, lit. 'Pilgrimage of Compostela'; Galician: O Camiño de Santiago), or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried. Pilgrims follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular with hikers, cyclists, and organized tour groups.

Created and established in the beginning of the 9th century following the discovery of the relics of Saint James the Great, the Way of St. James became a major pilgrimage route of medieval Christianity from the 10th century onwards. Following the end of the Granada War in 1492, under the reign of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, Pope Alexander VI officially declared the Camino de Santiago to be one of the "three great pilgrimages of Christendom", along with Jerusalem and the Via Francigena to Rome.

The Spanish Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in Spain, is part of the Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome, and the Spanish Episcopal Conference.

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 establishes the non-denominationality of the State, providing that the public authorities take into account the religious beliefs of society, maintaining cooperative relations with the Catholic Church and other confessions. Thus, the relations between the Spanish State and the Holy See are regulated by the 1976 agreement and the three 1979 agreements, which modified and replaced the previous 1953 concordat.