Seville
Seville is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula.
Seville has a municipal population of about 686,741 as of 2024, and a metropolitan population of about 1.5 million, making it the largest city in Andalusia and the 5th-largest city in Spain. Its old town, with an area of, contains a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising three buildings: the Alcázar palace complex, the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies. The Port of Seville, located about from the Atlantic Ocean, is the only river harbour in Spain. The capital of Andalusia enjoys hot temperatures in the summer, with daily maximums routinely above in July and August.
Seville was founded as the Roman city of Hispalis. Known as Ishbiliyah after the Islamic conquest in 711, Seville became the centre of the independent Taifa of Seville following the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba in the early 11th century; later it was ruled by Almoravids and Almohads until being incorporated to the Crown of Castile in 1248. Owing to its role as gateway of the Spanish Empire's trans-atlantic trade, managed from the Casa de Contratación, Seville became one of the largest cities in Western Europe in the 16th century. Following a deterioration in drought conditions in the Guadalquivir, the American trade gradually moved away from the city of Seville, in favour initially of downstream-dependent berths and eventually of the Bay of Cádiz – to which were eventually transferred control of both the fleets of the Indies and the Casa de Contratación.
The 20th century in Seville saw the tribulations of the Spanish Civil War, decisive cultural milestones such as the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 and Expo '92, and the city's election as the capital of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia.
Name
Etymology and derivatives
According to Manuel Pellicer Catalán, the name "Sevilla" derives from the ancient name Spal, meaning "lowland" in the Phoenician language. It is ultimately from Phoenician sefela, meaning "plain, valley." Hisbaal is another old name for Seville. It appears to have originated during the Phoenician colonisation of the Tartessian culture in south-western Iberia, and according to a new proposal, it refers to the god Baal.During Roman rule, the name was Latinised as Hispal and later as Hispalis. After the Umayyad invasion, this name remained in use among the Mozarabs, being adapted into Arabic as Išbīliya : since the /p/ phoneme does not exist in Arabic, it was replaced by /b/; the Latin place-name suffix -is was Arabized as -iya, and a turned into ī due to the phonetic phenomenon called imāla.
In the meantime, the city's official name had been changed to Ḥimṣ al-Andalus, in reference to the city of Homs in modern Syria, the jund of which Seville had been assigned to upon the Umayyad conquest; "Ḥimṣ al-Andalus" remained a customary and affectionate name for the city during the whole period throughout the Muslim Arab world, being referred to for example in the encyclopedia of Yaqut al-Hamawi or in Abu al-Baqa ar-Rundi's Ritha' al-Andalus.
The city is sometimes referred to as the "Pearl of Andalusia".
The inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos or hispalenses, after the Roman name of the city.
Motto
NO8DO is the official motto of Seville, popularly believed to be a rebus signifying the Spanish No me ha dejado, meaning "She has not abandoned me". The phrase, pronounced with synalepha as no-madeja-do, is written with an eight in the middle representing the word madeja "skein ". Legend states that the title was given by King Alfonso X, who was resident in the city's Alcázar and supported by the citizens when his son, later Sancho IV of Castile, tried to usurp the throne from him.The emblem is present on Seville's municipal flag, and features on city property such as manhole covers, and Christopher Columbus's tomb in the cathedral.
History
Seville is approximately 2,200 years old. The passage of the various civilizations instrumental in its growth has left the city with a distinct personality, and a large and well-preserved historical centre.Early periods
The mythological founder of the city is Hercules, commonly identified with the Phoenician god Melqart, who the myth says sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic, and founded trading posts at the current sites of Cádiz and of Seville. The original core of the city, in the neighbourhood of the present-day street, Cuesta del Rosario, dates to the 8th century BC, when Seville was on an island in the Guadalquivir. Archaeological excavations in 1999 found anthropic remains under the north wall of the Real Alcázar dating to the 8th–7th century BC. The town was called Hisbaal by the Phoenicians and by the Tartessians, the indigenous pre-Roman Iberian people of Tartessos, who controlled the Guadalquivir Valley at the time.The city was known from Roman times as Hispal and later as Hispalis. Hispalis developed into one of the great market and industrial centres of Hispania, while the nearby Roman city of Italica remained a typically Roman residential city. Large-scale Roman archaeological remains can be seen there and at the nearby town of Carmona as well.
Existing Roman features in Seville itself include the remains exposed in situ in the underground Antiquarium of the Metropol Parasol building, the remnants of an aqueduct, three pillars of a temple in Mármoles Street, the columns of La Alameda de Hércules and the remains in the Patio de Banderas square near the Seville Cathedral. The walls surrounding the city were originally built during the rule of Julius Caesar, but their current course and design were the result of Moorish reconstructions.
Following Roman rule, there were successive conquests of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica by the Germanic Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths during the 5th and 6th centuries.
Middle Ages
In the wake of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, Seville was seemingly taken by Musa ibn Nusayr in the late summer of 712, while he was on his way to Mérida. Yet it had to be retaken in July 713 by troops led by his son Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, as the Visigothic population who had fled to Beja had returned to Seville once Musa left for Mérida. The seat of the Wali of Al-Andalus was thus established in the city until 716, when the capital of Al-Andalus was relocated to Córdoba.Seville was sacked by Vikings in the mid-9th century. After Vikings arrived by 25 September 844, Seville fell to invaders on 1 October, and they stood for 40 days before they fled from the city. During Umayyad rule, under an Andalusi-Arab framework, the bulk of the population were Muladi converts, to which Christian and Jewish minorities added up. Up until the arrival of the Almohads in the 12th century, the city remained as the see of a Metropolitan Archbishop, the leading Christian religious figure in al-Andalus. However, the transfer of the relics of Saint Isidore to León circa 1063, in the taifa period, already hinted at a possible worsening of the situation of the local Christian minority.
A powerful taifa kingdom with capital in Seville emerged after 1023, in the wake of the fitna of al-Andalus. Ruled by the Abbadid dynasty, the taifa grew by aggregation of smaller neighbouring taifas. During the taifa period, Seville became an important scholarly and literary centre. After several months of siege, Seville was conquered by the Almoravids in 1091.
The city fell to the Almohads on 17 January 1147. After an informal Almohad settlement in Seville during the early stages of the Almohad presence in the Iberian Peninsula and then a brief relocation of the capital of al-Andalus to Córdoba in 1162, Seville became the definitive seat of the Andalusi part of the Almohad Empire in 1163, a twin capital alongside Marrakesh. Almohads carried out a large urban renewal. By the end of the 12th century, the walled enclosure perhaps contained 80,000 inhabitants.
In the wider context of the Castilian–Leonese conquest of the Guadalquivir Valley that ensued in the 13th century, Ferdinand III laid siege on Seville in 1247. A naval blockade came to prevent relief of the city. The city surrendered on 23 November 1248, after fifteen months of siege. The conditions of capitulation contemplated the eviction of the population, with contemporary sources seemingly confirming that a mass movement of people out of Seville indeed took place.
The city's development continued after the Castilian conquest in 1248. Public buildings were constructed including churches—many of which were built in the Mudéjar and Gothic styles—such as the Seville Cathedral, built during the 15th century with Gothic architecture. Other Moorish buildings were converted into Catholic edifices, as was customary of the Catholic Church during the Reconquista. The Moors' Palace became the Castilian royal residence, and during Pedro I's rule it was replaced by the Alcázar.
Seville was the starting point of the 1391 anti-Jewish massacres, which soon spread across Castile and Aragon. In the aftermath, all of Seville's synagogues were seized and converted into churches. The Jewish quarter's land and shops were appropriated by the church and many Jewish homes were burned down. 4,000 Jews were killed during the pogrom and many others were forced to convert.
The first tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition was instituted in Seville in 1478. Its primary charge was to ensure that all nominal Christians were really behaving like Christians, and not practicing what Judaism they could in secret. At first, the activity of the Inquisition was limited to the dioceses of Seville and Córdoba, where the Dominican friar, Alonso de Ojeda, had detected converso activity. The first Auto de Fé took place in Seville on 6 February 1481, when six people were burned alive. Alonso de Ojeda himself gave the sermon. The Inquisition then grew rapidly. The Plaza de San Francisco was the site of the 'autos de fé'. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid; and by the Alhambra Decree all Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism or be exiled from Spain.