Murcia
Murcia is a city in south-eastern Spain, and the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia. As of 2024, with a population of 471,982, it is the 7th-largest city in Spain. The total population of the metropolitan area was 672,773 in 2020, covering an urban area of 1,230.9 km2. It is located on the Segura River, in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It has a climate with hot summers, mild winters, and relatively low precipitation.
Murcia was founded by Abd ar-Rahman II, Emir of Cordoba, in 825 with the name Mursiyah. It is now mainly a services city and a university town. Highlights for visitors include the Cathedral of Murcia and a number of baroque buildings, renowned local cuisine, Holy Week procession, works of art by the famous Murcian sculptor Francisco Salzillo, and the Fiestas de Primavera.
The city, as the capital of the comarca Huerta de Murcia, is called "Europe's orchard" due to its long agricultural tradition and its fruit, vegetable, and flower production and exports.
History
The territory has been inhabited by humans since prehistory. People also lived in the current municipality during the Bronze and Iron Ages. During the late Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age, the occupancy of part of the current municipality was performed by the Argaric people. During the late Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the people who inhabited the current municipality were the Iberians. A remarkable site is a religious building, whose name is the De la Luz Iberian Sanctuary. There are traces of people presence during the Roman rule in the Iberian Peninsula era. A construction of the late Roman period in the Iberian Peninsula is a fortress, Castillo de los Garres, located in the south of the northern half of the municipality.It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin word myrtea or murtea, meaning land of the myrtle, although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village. Other research suggests that it may owe its name to the Latin Murtae, which covered the regional landscape for many centuries. The Latin name eventually changed into the Arabic Mursiya, and then, Murcia.
The city in its present location was founded with the name Madinat Mursiyah in AD 825 by Abd ar-Rahman II, who was then the emir of Córdoba. Umayyad planners, taking advantage of the course of the river Segura, created an imaginative and complex network of irrigation channels that made the town's agricultural existence prosperous. In the 12th century the traveller and writer Muhammad al-Idrisi described the city of Murcia as populous and strongly fortified. After the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031, Murcia passed under the successive rules of the powers seated variously at Almería and Toledo, but finally became capital of its own kingdom with Ibn Tahir. After the fall of the Almoravide empire, Ibn Mardanis made Murcia the capital of a new independent kingdom. At this time, Murcia was a very prosperous city, famous for its ceramics, exported to Italian towns, as well as for silk and paper industries, the first in Europe. The coinage of Murcia was considered as model in all the continent. The mystic Ibn Arabi and the poet Ibn al-Jinan were born in Murcia during this period.
In 1172 Murcia was conquered by the north African Almohades, the last Muslim empire to rule southern Spain, and as the forces of the Christian Reconquista gained the upper hand, was the capital of a small Muslim emirate from 1223 to 1243. By the treaty of Alcaraz, in 1243, the Christian king Ferdinand III of Castile made Murcia a protectorate, getting access to the Mediterranean sea while Murcia was protected against Granada and Aragon. The Christian population of the town became the majority as immigrants poured in from almost all parts of the Iberian Peninsula, with Muslims confined to the suburb of Arrixaca. Christian immigration was encouraged with the goal of establishing a loyal Christian base. These measures led to the Muslim popular revolt in 1264, which was quelled by James I of Aragon in 1266, conquering Murcia and bringing Aragonese and Catalan immigrants with him.
After this, during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, Murcia was one of his capitals with Toledo and Seville.
The Murcian duality: Catalan population in a Castillian territory, brought the subsequent conquest of the city by James II of Aragon in 1296. In 1304, Murcia was finally incorporated into Castile under the Treaty of Torrellas.
Murcia's prosperity declined as the Mediterranean lost trade to the ocean routes and from the wars between the Christians and the Ottoman Empire. The old prosperity of Murcia became crises during 14th century because of its border location with the neighbouring Muslim kingdom of Granada, but flourished after its conquest in 1492 and again in the 18th century, benefiting greatly from a boom in the silk industry. Most of the modern city's landmark churches, monuments and old architecture date from this period. In this century, Murcia lived an important role in Bourbon victory in the War of the Spanish Succession, thanks to Cardinal Belluga. In 1810, Murcia was looted by Napoleonic troops; it then suffered a major earthquake in 1829. According to contemporaneous accounts, an estimated 6,000 people died from the disaster's effects across the province. Plague and cholera followed.
The town and surrounding area suffered badly from floods in 1651, 1879, 1946 and 1948, though the construction of a levee helped to stave off the repeated floods from the Segura. A popular pedestrian walkway, the Malecon, runs along the top of the levee.
Murcia has been the capital of the province of Murcia since 1833 and, with its creation by the central government in 1982, capital of the autonomous community. Since then, it has become the seventh most populated municipality in Spain, and a thriving services city.
The 5.1 Lorca earthquake shook the Region of Murcia with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII on 11 May 2011. Nine people were killed and over 400 were injured.
Geography
Murcia is located near the center of a low-lying fertile plain known as the huerta of Murcia. The Segura River and its right-hand tributary, the Guadalentín, run through the area. The city has an elevation of above sea level and its municipality covers approximately.The best known and most dominant aspect of the municipal area's landscape is the orchard. In addition to the orchard and urban zones, the great expanse of the municipal area is made up of different landscapes: badlands, groves of Carrasco pine trees in the precoastal mountain ranges and, towards the south, a semi-steppe region. A large natural park, the Parque Regional de Carrascoy y el Valle, lies just to the south of the city.
Segura River
The Segura River crosses an alluvial plain, part of a Mediterranean pluvial system. The river crosses the city from west to east. Its volumetric flow is mostly small but the river is known to produce occasional flooding, like the times when the capital was inundated, in 1946, 1948, 1973 and 1989.Mountains and hills
The Segura river's Valley is surrounded by two mountain ranges, the hills of Guadalupe, Espinardo, Cabezo de Torres, Esparragal and Monteagudo in the north and the Cordillera Sur in the south. The municipality itself is divided into southern and northern zones by a series of mountain ranges, the aforementioned Cordillera Sur. These two zones are known as Field of Murcia and Orchard of Murcia. Near the plain's center, the steep hill of Monteagudo protrudes dramatically.Districts
The territory of Murcia's municipality is made up of 54 pedanías and 28 barrios. The barrios make up the the main urban portion of the city. The historic city center is approximately of the urbanised downtown portion of Murcia.| District | Population |
| La Albatalía | 2,122 |
| La Alberca | 12,998 |
| Algezares | 5,717 |
| Aljucer | 7,761 |
| Alquerías | 6,286 |
| La Arboleja | 2,111 |
| Baños y Mendigo | 847 |
| Barqueros | 1,040 |
| Beniaján | 11,373 |
| Cabezo de Torres | 13,560 |
| Cañada Hermosa | 189 |
| Cañadas de San Pedro | 371 |
| Carrascoy | 104 |
| Casillas | 4,995 |
| Churra | 8,731 |
| Cobatillas | 2,701 |
| Corvera | 2,808 |
| Los Dolores | 5,189 |
| Era Alta | 3,251 |
| El Esparragal | 7,920 |
| Garres y Lages | 7,673 |
| Gea y Truyols | 1,251 |
| Guadalupe | 7,344 |
| Javalí Nuevo | 3,223 |
| Javalí Viejo | 2,292 |
| Jerónimo y Avileses y Balsicas de Arriba | 1,787 |
| Lobosillo | 1,893 |
| Llano de Brujas | 5,639 |
Climate
Murcia has a hot semi-arid climate. It has mild winters and very hot summers because of its inland location. It averages more than 320 days with sun per year. Occasionally, Murcia has heavy, torrential rain.In the coldest month, January, the average temperature range is a high of during the day and a low of at night. Night frost occurs in most winters, but snow is very rare. Snow fell and accumulated in Murcia during the 20th century eight times, in 1910, 1914, 1926, 1942, 1951, 1957, 1971 and 1983, and twice in the 21st century in 2017 and 2021. In the warmest month, August, the range goes from during the day to at night. Temperatures almost always reach or exceed on at least one or two days per year. The official record for Murcia stands at and at Alcantarilla airport in the western suburbs on 15 august 2021 with.