Guardia Civil

The Guardia Civil is one of Spain's two national law enforcement agencies, founded on 13 May 1844 as a gendarmerie, a police force organized along military lines, and it remains under dual authority today, answering to the Ministry of the Interior for routine civilian policing and to the Ministry of Defence when placed under military command in wartime. Its jurisdiction covers Spain's rural areas, highways and ports, a division of labor that leaves urban policing chiefly to the separate National Police Corps, and it additionally participates in international peacekeeping and stabilization missions through the European Gendarmerie Force. With roughly 82,000 active personnel, the Guardia Civil is one of Spain's largest security institutions and is regularly cited as among the country's most trusted public bodies. Its military structure and rural and border oriented mandate place it in the same broad institutional category as other European gendarmeries, distinct from an ordinary civilian municipal police force.