Oviedo

Oviedo was founded on an empty hillside: tradition says two monks, Máximo and Fromestano, settled here in 761 and built a small church to Saint Vincent. King Fruela I added a palace and a church, and Alfonso II the Chaste, who reigned from 791 to 842, moved the court of the Kingdom of Asturias here from Pravia and built the church of the Saviour, the forerunner of the cathedral, and San Julián de los Prados. The creation of the pilgrims' route to the newly found tomb of Saint James at Santiago in his reign was a major event in the city's history. Ramiro I built a palace on Monte Naranco, and Alfonso III commissioned the jewelled Victory Cross in 908. Emir Hisham I sacked the city in 794.

After Alfonso III's death the court moved to León and Oviedo became a pilgrimage and church city. In the 12th century Bishop Pelayo forged royal charters to promote the church of Oviedo. The medieval city, with its walls and Gothic cathedral begun in 1388, kept its outline, and the university, founded by Fernando de Valdés Salas, opened in 1608. Nobles built palaces in the 18th century, and in the 19th industry and the new Calle Uría pushed the city outwards.

In October 1934 armed miners captured Oviedo during the Asturian revolt; Francisco Franco sent in troops, and the street fighting left thousands dead and the Cámara Santa blown up. In 1936 the garrison sided with the Nationalist coup and held out through a three-month siege until relieved in 1937. Rebuilt and expanded since, Oviedo has grown as the seat of the Asturian government and university.

Oviedo has a literary double: it is the model for Vetusta, the provincial cathedral town of Leopoldo Alas's novel La Regenta. Oviedo featured prominently in Woody Allen's film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and a life-size statue of him, put up in 2005 after he praised the city on receiving the Prince of Asturias Award, stands on a central street. The Campoamor Theatre, opened in 1892 and burned during the 1934 revolution, hosts the opera season and the Princess of Asturias Awards, which bring international figures from the arts, science and public life to the city each year. The Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias is based at the Prince Felipe Auditorium.

The cathedral is still a goal for pilgrims. The Sudarium of Oviedo, a cloth revered as Christ's burial cloth since the 9th century, is shown to the public three times a year: on Good Friday, on 14 September and on 21 September. The city's festive calendar runs from the Antroxu carnival through the Martes de Campo picnic holiday in May and the San Xuan bonfires to the San Mateo festival in September, with its Día de América en Asturias recalling the region's emigrants. El Desarme commemorates a local victory over a Carlist army in the 1830s.

Asturian is used alongside Spanish, and the city's official name is Oviedo / Uviéu. Fernando Alonso, the two-time Formula One world champion, is from Oviedo, and Real Oviedo, the football club, plays at the Carlos Tartiere.

About 224,000 people lived in the municipality in 2025, making it the second city of Asturias after Gijón. In 2024 about 15 per cent of residents were born abroad, Colombians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Cubans and Romanians the largest groups. Oviedo sits about 24 km from Gijón and 23 km from Avilés, and the three form the core of central Asturias.

The economy depends on services. As the regional capital, Oviedo has a large public administration, and the University of Oviedo, with its international campus, draws students and scholars. Offices fill the city centre, while manufacturing lies in the neighbouring municipalities of Siero and Llanera to the north. Calle Uría is the main shopping street, with large shopping centres on the city's edge.

The old town has been pedestrianised and traffic restricted on Uría, so much of daily life happens on foot, between the park, the market and the sidrerías. The city is a hilly one, ringed by green slopes, with Monte Naranco to the north and rural parishes within its own boundaries.

Asturian food is hearty mountain and farm cooking. Fabada asturiana, the region's most famous dish, is a rich stew of large white beans, fabes de la Granja, with pork shoulder, morcilla, chorizo and saffron, usually eaten at lunch in winter and served with cider or red wine. Cachopo is two veal fillets with ham and cheese, breaded and fried. Other local dishes include carne gobernada, chunks of meat in an onion, garlic and white wine sauce, chorizo cooked in cider, callos, or tripe, and fabes with clams.

Asturian cheeses are famous across Spain, especially Cabrales, known for its pungent smell and strong flavour. The sweet things are frixuelos, thin pancakes, arroz con leche, a rice pudding, and Oviedo's own carbayones, an almond pastry. Paxarines are figures of breadcrumb and egg coloured with saffron.

Cider, sidra, is the drink of Asturias: a very dry natural cider made mainly from acidic apples. In the sidrerías of Calle Gascona and across the city an escanciador raises the bottle high above the head to aerate it and pours a culín, a small measure to be drunk at once. Mercado El Fontán, the covered market opened in 1885, sells cheeses, meat and produce.