Salamanca

The first settlement at Salamanca was an Iron Age village on the hill of San Vicente above the Tormes; by the 3rd century BC a larger town had grown on the neighbouring hill where the cathedrals now stand. Hannibal besieged and took it, as Helmantica, in 220 BC. Under Rome it became Salmantica, a town on the road later called the Vía de la Plata, and the first fifteen arches of its bridge over the Tormes survive from that time. After the Muslim conquest in 712 the area became a thinly peopled frontier, and lasting resettlement came only after the capture of Toledo in 1085, when Raymond of Burgundy brought settlers in 1102 and the Old Cathedral was begun.

In 1218 Alfonso IX of León granted the cathedral schools the rank of a studium generale, and Salamanca grew into one of Europe's great centres of learning. Antonio de Nebrija published the first grammar of the Castilian language in 1492; Columbus sought support for his voyage among the Dominicans of San Esteban; and in the 16th century the School of Salamanca, led by Francisco de Vitoria, laid foundations of international law. The city joined the Comuneros revolt of 1520, and in the 16th century, its golden age, some 6,500 students enrolled each year.

Decline followed in the 17th century, but in the 18th the Plaza Mayor was built and the New Cathedral completed. During the Peninsular War the French destroyed a large part of the city's buildings for their defences, and in 1812 Wellington defeated them nearby at the Battle of Salamanca. In the Civil War the city was an early Nationalist headquarters, where Franco was proclaimed Generalissimo in 1936. UNESCO listed the old city in 1988, and Salamanca was a European Capital of Culture in 2002.

The university shapes the city's character. Its carved Plateresque façade, with the small toad hidden among the decoration, is a rite of passage for visitors, and students from across Spain and abroad — many of them on summer courses in Spanish — fill its squares and bars. The Pontifical University, founded in 1940 to continue the old theological studies, occupies La Clerecía. Writers are part of the story too: Fray Luis de León studied here, and the old rectors' house is kept as it was when Miguel de Unamuno was rector.

The city's stone gives it its look: the golden sandstone of the old city is the setting of many Plateresque buildings, and restorers keep up a tradition of adding a contemporary detail — an astronaut was carved on the New Cathedral's Puerta de Ramos in 1992. The Plaza Mayor is a popular gathering place.

Holy Week is the great festival, known for processions, some walked in silence, and has been of International Tourist Interest since 2003. On Lunes de Aguas, the Monday after Easter Monday, people head out to the countryside to eat hornazo, and the fiestas of the patron, the Virgen de la Vega, fall in September. Football divides loyalties between Salamanca CF and Unionistas de Salamanca, founded in 2013.

About 144,000 people lived in the city in 2024, and more in the surrounding towns that have grown into its suburbs. The population is older than the Spanish average — almost 29 per cent are over 65 — and has fallen slightly over recent decades as families moved to the metropolitan area. About 13 per cent were born abroad, with Peruvians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Hondurans and Moroccans the largest groups.

The university and tourism dominate the economy, and services employ the great majority of workers; industry is small, though a veterinary vaccine maker and a fertiliser company rank among the region's larger businesses. Spanish-language teaching has grown into a sector of its own, bringing students from many countries, above all in summer.

Most residents live in districts outside the old city, such as Garrido, Salesas and Labradores to the north. The rhythm is set by the academic year: term time fills the bars of Van Dyck and the old city, while the summer brings language students and tourists instead.

Salamanca's cooking is the meat-rich food of the western plateau. The best known dish is hornazo, a pie of bread dough baked with pork loin, spicy chorizo and hard-boiled eggs, eaten in the countryside on Lunes de Aguas; the festival's name supposedly comes from a twisting of the word enagua, petticoat. Hornazo is also eaten in the neighbouring province of Ávila. Chanfaina, rice steamed with pork, is very popular, and cocido is a slow-cooked casserole based on chickpeas.

Tapas are the everyday way to eat out. Many are pork-based — ribs, chorizo, ham, bacon or jeta, pig's cheek — and bars across the city serve them, with a string of them along Calle Van Dyck, about 1 km north of the Plaza Mayor. The arcades and side streets of the Plaza Mayor hold traditional restaurants, the square itself is ringed with restaurants and ice-cream parlours, and the central market stands a short walk from the square.