Soy español, de Málaga

I'm Spanish, from Malaga...

Yes, I could say that and other 300.000 people who live in this city too. But I'll give you a small riddle...

Malaga has around 570.000 (2008) inhabitants, but only 300.000 people could say soy español, de Málaga, why?

a) - Half of the population in Malaga are foreigners or from other cities of Spain.
b) - Dogs and cats are considered inhabitants of the city, there are around 260.000 of them and naturally, they can't speak (at least not languages with words as we know).
c) - The Spanish language has two genders: masculine or feminine. So, a bit less than a half of the population (thinking there's more men than women) are girls, women or old women, and therefore, they can't use the masculine gender.

I hope it was easy...

When it's masculine and when feminine?.-

It might seem quite a stupid question if you speak a language with genders, but what if you speak English, which has no distinction of genders? Well, it's quite easy if it's a human being, with animals you might need to take a look at its genital organs to tell for sure. But what if it's a table? Is it masculine or feminine? This really seems a stupid question...

The truth is there's no rule for that. A table is feminine just because somebody decided so. So this means that whenever you need to learn a word (its writing) you also need to learn the gender.

¿Soy español o soy de España?.-

I'm Spanish or I'm from Spain?...

Preferably the first option, which is more common, though it's the same thing. You use the 2nd when the nationality is not so well-known by Spanish speakers. It doesn't even need to be from another country. For example, the inhabitants of Huelva, here in Spain, are called onubenses, and not everyone knows that (of course in Huelva they do :)
What about other countries? Let's say you come from Kazakhstan. Most Spanish people don't even know where it is (too bad because it's a beautiful country), so don't expect them to know that, if you say Soy kazajo, they're not going to have the slightest idea what you're talking about, maybe even Soy de Kazajistán will be hard for them to locate the country. Just don't feel disappointed if you're from Kazakhstan and somebody in Spain asks you where your country is. I'm sure many Japanese wouldn't be able to locate Hungary, and many Americans wouldn't locate Spain on a map.

By the way, notice that in Spanish, nationalities aren't written in capital letters, but the countries are.

O is masculine, A is feminine. Continue with the others:

ruso -> rusa (Russian)
italiano -> italian_ (Italian)
australiano -> australian_ (Australian)
argentino -> argentin_ (Argentinian)
mejicano -> mejican_ (Mexican)
chino -> chin_ (Chinese)

Consonant is masculine, +A is feminine:

español -> española (Spanish)
francés -> frances_ (French)
alemán -> aleman_ (German)
inglés -> ingles_ (English)
portugués -> portugues_ (Portuguese)
japonés -> japones_ (Japanese)

E is masculine and feminine:

canadiense -> canadiense (Canadian)
estadounidense -> estadounidens_ (American)

Some nationalities with the same form for masculine and feminine:

belga -> belga (Belgian)
iraquí -> ... (Iraqi)
marroquí -> ... (Moroccan)
hindú -> ... (Indian)

You can add the name of the city you are from: Soy español, de Málaga.

By the way, ¿de dónde eres tú? Yes you, who are reading this blog...

Soy... , de...