Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana

Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout The Ages regards the Espasa as one of the greatest encyclopedias, along with the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition and the Enciclopedia Italiana (p. 147).

"This work is remarkable for its detail: maps and plans of even remote and obscure places; reproductions and descriptions of works of art entered under their titles; lengthy bibliographies, international in scope; full dictionary treatment of individual words with, in many cases, foreign equivalents; and usually affording full scope to lengthy treatment of important subjects."

Common words (not proper names) are translated into English, French, German, Esperanto and other languages.

The aim of the publishers was to produce an encyclopedia reference book in Spanish that covered scientific and technological knowledge as well as history, biographies, geography, arts, and the literature of Spain and Latin America.

According to calculations made by its publishers, the encyclopaedia has more than 165,000 pages and 200 million words.