File:Emblem_of_the_Spanish_Civil_Guard.svg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Civil Guard
Sign in to saveAlso known as Benemérita, Verdes, Spanish Civil Guard, Benemerita, Guardia Civil
gendarmerie branch of Spain's armed forces
OverviewAI-generated
The Civil Guard, also referred to as the Guardia Civil, is an active government organization based in Madrid, Spain. It was established on May 18, 1844. The organization maintains an official website and has 1,965,138 social media followers.
The entity is categorized under "Guardia Civil, Spain" on Commons. Its status is listed as active, and it is identified as a government type within Spain. The organization is referenced by 1,352 other encyclopedia articles.
Synthesized by Vinony from 17 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, Firecrawl, ROR, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Abbreviation
- GC
- Motto
- El honor es mi divisa , Honour is my badge
- Formed
- May 13, 1844
- Employees
- 91,034 total (2024) and, of that, 81,034 in active service (2024)
- Annual budget
- € 3.67 billion, 2026
- Operations jurisdiction
- Spain
- General nature
- Gendarmerie
- Overseen by
- Directorate-General of the Police
- Headquarters
- Calle de Guzmán el Bueno, 110, 28003 Madrid, Spain
- Elected officers responsible
- Fernando Grande-Marlaska , Minister of the Interior Margarita Robles , Minister of Defence
- Agency executives
- Mercedes González Fernández , Director-General Manuel Llamas Fernández [ es ] , Deputy Director of Operations
- Parent agency
- Directorate-General of the Civil Guard
- Award
- Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand
via Wikipedia infobox
Research organization · ROR
- Type
- Government
- Founded
- 1844
- Location
- Madrid, Spain
- Status
- Active
GRID grid.450859.5
Official website
Inicio
guardiacivil.es →Link to the official site · 11,682 chars · not written by Vinony
~21 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Civil Guard (Spanish: Guardia Civil [ˈɡwaɾðja θiˈβil]) is one of the two national law enforcement agencies of Spain (the other being the National Police). As a national gendarmerie, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the authority of both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence. The role of the Ministry of Defence is limited except in times of war when the Ministry has exclusive authority. The corps is colloquially known as the benemérita (the meritorious or the reputables). In annual surveys, it generally ranks as the national institution most valued by Spaniards, closely followed by other law enforcement agencies and the armed forces.
It has both a regular national role and undertakes specific foreign peacekeeping missions and is part of the European Gendarmerie Force. As a national gendarmerie force, the Civil Guard was modelled on the French National Gendarmerie and has many similarities.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Civil Guard” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.