Granada

People lived on the Albaicín hill from about the 7th century BC, and a significant Roman town stood there. In early Islamic times the main city of the area was Ilbira, near present-day Atarfe, while Garnata was a smaller settlement with a largely Jewish population. When the caliphate of Córdoba collapsed after 1009, the Zirid leader Zawi ben Ziri made Granada the capital of an independent taifa kingdom, building a citadel on the Albaicín. Under his successors the most powerful figure at court was the Jewish administrator Samuel ha-Nagid.

In the 13th century Granada became the capital of the Nasrid emirate, which survived as the last Muslim state in Iberia, its population swollen by refugees from lands taken by Castile and Aragon. Ibn al-Ahmar moved the royal palace to the Sabika hill and began the Alhambra. Below it lay the Great Mosque, the silk bazaar of the Alcaicería, the Corral del Carbón and the madrasa founded by Yusuf I in 1349. Ibn Battuta called the city the "bride" of the cities of Andalusia.

Granada surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, when it had about 50,000 people. The Alhambra Decree of the same year expelled the Jews who would not convert, most Muslims converted to stay, Charles V founded the university in 1531, and the cathedral and Royal Chapel rose over the mosque. After the morisco rebellion of 1568 the Albaicín was emptied, and the moriscos were expelled from Spain by 1614. Washington Irving lived here in 1830 and wrote Tales of the Alhambra, drawing Romantic travellers. In 1936 the city joined the Nationalist uprising, and resistance in the Albaicín was violently put down. Tourism has become a major industry in recent decades.

Granada's identity rests on its Nasrid past and on the way it was remade after 1492. The Alhambra and Generalife were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, and the listing was extended to the Albaicín in 1994. Mudéjar and Renaissance buildings stand beside the Islamic ones, and a mosque now stands in the Albaicín near the church of San Nicolás.

The caves of Sacromonte are home to the zambra, a dance that originated in the neighbourhood and is still performed in its caves; a cultural centre there works to preserve Gitano traditions. At the top of the hill the Abbey of Sacromonte, founded in the 17th century by Archbishop Pedro de Castro, keeps the Christ of Risueño, an object of devotion for the Romani people, who sing and dance in its Holy Week procession.

The city is closely bound to the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca, born in Fuente Vaqueros in the Vega, whose family spent its summers at the Huerta de San Vicente; the airport bears his name. The University of Granada, founded in 1531, has about 47,000 undergraduates and is one of the leading destinations for Erasmus exchange students. The International Music and Dance Festival and the International Jazz Festival are among the events of the cultural year, and Holy Week, the Day of the Crosses and the Corpus Christi fair mark the spring.

The municipality had about 234,000 people in 2024, and about 15 per cent of residents were born outside Spain. The metropolitan area takes in some fifty municipalities, and many families have moved out to the surrounding towns because housing in the capital is expensive and industrial estates, and the jobs that go with them, are on the periphery.

Tourism has become a major industry, and the university, spread over five campuses, gives the city a student-driven nightlife. The fertile Vega around the city is irrigated by streams from the Sierra Nevada and still farmed. The Granada Metro, a single light-rail line opened in 2017 after long delays, carried more than 17 million passengers in 2025.

The rhythm of the day follows the Spanish pattern, with a late lunch and an evening spent out; going for tapas between work and dinner is a deeply rooted custom. Residents of the Albaicín and Sacromonte share their steep lanes with large numbers of visitors through the year.

Granada's cooking belongs to the Arab-Andalusian tradition, and its Arab and Jewish heritage shows in the spices and flavourings: cumin, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, almonds and honey. The range of the province, from the coast to the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, supplies vegetables, meats, sausages and fish for many soups and stews.

Two local products, ham and beans, are combined in habas con jamón, broad beans with ham, one of the most typical dishes. The tortilla del Sacromonte is an omelette that traditionally includes cooked brains among its ingredients. The pionono, a small sweet pastry named after Pope Pius IX, comes from the province.

Above all, Granada is known for its tapas. Unlike in most of Andalusia, bars usually serve a tapa free with each drink, and going from bar to bar between work and dinner is a habit with routes of its own; Plaza Nueva, at the foot of the Albaicín, is ringed by tapas bars. Calle Calderería Nueva, climbing from the centre into the Albaicín, has tea shops, Arabic restaurants and bakeries, and the terraces of Plaza Bib-Rambla fill on warm evenings.