Alicante

People have lived around Alicante for thousands of years, and Greek and Phoenician traders were visiting the coast by 1000 BC. In the mid-230s BC the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca founded the fortified settlement of Akra Leuké, "White Point", generally placed on the site of the modern city, and the Romans later built the town of Lucentum, whose ruins survive at Albufereta. The Moors, who arrived early in the 8th century, called it Laqant, the origin of its modern name.

Castile took the town in 1247; in 1296 it passed to the Crown of Aragon under James II, became a royal town with seats in the Valencian parliament, and grew into a Mediterranean trading port shipping rice, wine, olive oil, oranges and wool. The expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and of the Moriscos between 1609 and 1614 cost the region dearly, and after the War of the Spanish Succession the city slid into a long decline, living on shoemaking, oranges, almonds and fishing until international trade and the harbour revived it at the end of the 19th century.

Alicante was the last city loyal to the Republic to be occupied by Franco's troops, on 1 April 1939, and the last Republican officials left from its harbour; days before, the British ship Stanbrook had carried thousands of refugees out under bombardment. In May 1938 Italian bombers killed more than 300 civilians at the market. From the 1950s settlers from French Algeria arrived, and from the late 1950s tourism and second homes transformed the coast, helped by the new airport at El Altet.

The Bonfires of Saint John, from 19 to 24 June, are the city's great festival. Since 1928 the old custom of burning furniture on Saint John's night has grown into elaborate satirical constructions inspired by Valencia's Falles, raised by neighbourhood groups and burned on the night of the 24th; a week later come five nights of firework contests over Postiguet beach. Through the summer, districts such as San Blas and Altozano stage their own Moors and Christians festivals.

Life faces the sea. For people from Alicante the Explanada, with its rippling marble pavement, is the place for the evening paseo and for open-air concerts, and every summer the port hosts two months of music, theatre and dance. The city is bilingual — Alicante in Spanish and Alacant in Valencian — and its population is unusually international: a little over a quarter were born abroad. The European Union's Intellectual Property Office has its headquarters here, and the University of Alicante, just north of the city, has more than 25,000 students.

Football means Hércules CF, which played in La Liga in 1996–97 and 2010–11 and is remembered for beating Barcelona in 1997. Alicante has also been the starting port of the round-the-world Ocean Race.

About 359,000 people lived in the city in 2024, the second-largest in the Valencian Community, and together with Elche and other towns it forms a conurbation of nearly a million. The economy rests on tourism, services and public administration, the university and the EU office; the port has turned from cargo, most of which moved to Valencia, towards cruise ships. The construction boom of the 1960s and again from the late 1990s left a coast of apartment blocks and made planning a recurring argument, and residents fought off plans to build an industrial estate in the port in 2006–07.

The pattern of the day is Spanish: a light breakfast, the main meal in the early afternoon, a quiet late afternoon and dinner after nine. The city's large student population and its visitors keep bars busy year-round, and in summer the social scene moves out to Playa de San Juan. Weekends belong to the beaches and the Explanada.

As elsewhere along this coast, seafood and rice dominate. Arròs a banda — "rice on the side" — began with Alicante's fishermen, who sold their best catch and kept the leftovers to make a stock in which they cooked rice; it is usually served with alioli. Paella, fideuà and other rice dishes are widely served, and nearly every restaurant has a menú del día, a set lunch of three or four courses.

Turrón, the almond nougat eaten at Christmas, belongs to this province. Turrón de Alicante, named after the city, is the hard kind — whole almonds bound in a mass of egg, honey and sugar — while the soft kind, with the almonds ground to a paste, is named after Xixona in the hills to the north, where turrón has been made since at least the 15th century. Both are protected by geographical indications.

The Mercado Central, where Italian bombs fell in 1938, sells the region's fish and vegetables, and the restaurant streets around Calle Castaños and the co-cathedral fill in the evenings with people eating tapas and raciones.