Portugalete
The town has 45,766 inhabitants (2019 census) and is part of Bilbao's metropolitan area. It is located at the mouth of the Estuary of Bilbao, on the left bank. Its land area is only 3.21 km², resulting in a population density of 15,908.4 persons/km², the fifth-most densely populated municipality in Spain (following Mislata, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Benetússer, and Santa Coloma de Gramenet).
In 1300 Portugalete became the main competitor port for Bilbao, but it lost its predominant position in 1511 when the trade privileges were granted to the Port of Bilbao instead of Portugalete.
Despite its name, it is not near the Spanish border with Portugal and its name is not etymologically related with that country: it derives, instead, from a phonetic adaptation of its Basque name (Portu-Ugaldeta) (edges of the port) to the Spanish language.
The city has the Vizcaya Bridge, a transporter bridge. The car ferry is suspended from a frame by wires attached to wheels on tracks above the cabin and moves from one side of the River Nervión to the other (Getxo) via a traction system.
This bridge was declared a World Heritage Site on 13 July 2006.
Map - Portugalete
Map
Country - Spain
Flag of Spain |
Anatomically modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 42,000 years ago. The ancient Iberian and Celtic tribes, along with other pre-Roman peoples, dwelled the territory maintaining contacts with foreign Mediterranean cultures. The Roman conquest and colonization of the peninsula (Hispania) ensued, bringing the Romanization of the population. Receding of Western Roman imperial authority ushered in the migration of different non-Roman peoples from Central and Northern Europe with the Visigoths as the dominant power in the peninsula by the fifth century. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centered in Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them León, Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and Navarre made an intermittent southward military expansion, known as Reconquista, repelling the Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Emirate of Granada in 1492. Jews and Muslims were forced to choose between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion, and eventually the converts were expelled through different royal decrees.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
EUR | Euro | € | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
EU | Basque language |
CA | Catalan language |
GL | Galician language |
OC | Occitan language |
ES | Spanish language |