(My answer on Quora)
Spain, historically focused her colonizing efforts on the New World (the Americas). By the mid 19th century most of this territory, that at one time been administered as five regions by the Spanish, had largely won independence from their Iberian overlords after a series of bloody Independence Wars.
When the scramble for Africa heated up in the 19th century Spain had been in decline as a global power for almost two centuries. During the Napoleonic Era she fought the Peninsular War with much needed British support, in opposition against French domination and was largely relegated to the periphery of European power politics.
The appetite for expansion was weak and other than her holdings in Spanish Guinea (now Equatorial Guinea) in the early days Spain was not in a position to challenge the British or the French hegemony in Africa. The Portuguese were more successful in this realm as they had largely avoided the naval and trading decline that had engulfed Spain since the 17th century (although in relative terms they too were far from the power that they were several centuries earlier).
Spain was also a late starter in the Industrial Revolution and therefore did not face the same urgency for raw materials as did her more Northern European rivals. On top of that the 19th century were turbulent times in Spanish history with the country laboring under the strain of the Three Carlist wars that would serve as the harbinger to the Spanish Civil War of the 20th century. Spain has turned inward and this would define her politics for both the 19th and 20th centuries.
Having said that Spain did have control of a number of territories in North and West Africa. These included Ceuta, Melilla, the Moroccan Protectorate, Spanish Sahara and as already mentioned Equatorial Guinea.
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