Toledo

The hill in the bend of the Tagus was a town of the Carpetani people when the Roman historian Livy first mentioned it as Toletum. Under Rome it gained a circus, city walls, public baths and a water supply. In 546, or possibly earlier, the Visigoths made it the capital of their kingdom, and at the council of 589 King Reccared declared his conversion from Arianism to Catholicism, making the city the religious heart of Visigothic Spain. Tariq ibn Ziyad took it in 711 or 712 for the Umayyads, and as Tulaytulah it became a large, often rebellious city of al-Andalus, home to Muslims, Christians and a Jewish community of several thousand.

On 25 May 1085 Alfonso VI of León took Toledo, and for the next two centuries it remained open to Muslim and Jewish influences. Its School of Translators turned Arabic scholarship into Castilian and Latin, and synagogues and Mudéjar churches of these centuries still stand. The Jews were expelled in 1492, and in 1520 it was one of the first cities to join the Comuneros revolt against Charles V, holding out until 1522. When Philip II moved the court to Madrid in 1561, Toledo began a slow decline; silk kept its economy afloat for a while, but by the 1630s the decline was real, and by 1900 the population was about 23,000.

In July 1936 rebel officers under José Moscardó shut themselves in the Alcázar, which held out against Republican forces until Franco's army lifted the siege in September, and the two-month resistance became a core symbol of Francoist mythology. In 1983 Toledo became the seat of the parliament and government of Castile-La Mancha, and in 1986 UNESCO listed the old city as a World Heritage Site.

Toledo's identity rests on its past as a meeting place of Christians, Muslims and Jews. The city keeps reminders of all three: the synagogues of Santa María la Blanca and El Tránsito, the little mosque of Cristo de la Luz and the Mudéjar towers of its churches, one of them a converted minaret. The cathedral, the primate church of Spain, is the seat of a powerful archdiocese, and the councils of Toledo shaped the Visigothic church.

The Cretan-born painter El Greco spent the later part of his life here and painted the city several times; his Burial of the Count of Orgaz hangs in the church of Santo Tomé, and his works hang in the Santa Cruz museum and the El Greco Museum. Metalwork is the city's other great tradition. Toledo steel was regarded as the best in Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries, swordmaking was organised in a royal factory, and shops in the old city still sell swords, armour and damascene work, gold and silver thread inlaid into steel.

The religious calendar is the centre of public life. Holy Week processions pass through the narrow lanes, and the feast of Corpus Christi, declared of International Tourist Interest in 1980, is one of its most important religious celebrations, when the streets are hung with awnings and the cathedral's monstrance is carried in procession. On 1 May people go on pilgrimage to the hermitage of the Virgen del Valle across the river.

About 86,500 people lived in the municipality in January 2024. Since the mid-19th century the city has spread beyond its walls, and in the 21st century most growth has been in Santa María de Benquerencia, a district begun in the 1970s about 8 km east of the centre on the south bank, where the new University Hospital, begun in 2007, opened in 2020.

In 2007 services employed 86.5% of working people. As regional capital Toledo is home to the government of Castile-La Mancha, and the metal-working tradition of knives and swords continues alongside smaller industries. High-speed trains, running since 2005, put Madrid just under half an hour away.

The city is also home to the National Hospital for Paraplegics, a national centre for the treatment of spinal cord injuries, and to the Infantry Academy. The old city is busy with visitors by day, while the newer districts outside the walls carry most of the city's ordinary routine of school, work and shopping.

Toledo's cooking draws on lamb and game such as partridge. Local specialities include roast or stewed lamb, cochifrito, alubias con perdiz (beans with partridge), perdiz estofada (partridge stew), migas, gachas manchegas and tortilla a la magra. Carcamusas is a stew of lean pork in a moderately spicy tomato sauce with peas, and there is a local version of the Madrid chickpea stew, cocido toledano.

The city's most famous product is mazapán, or marzipan, an almond sweet that holds a Protected Geographical Indication as mazapán de Toledo. Unlike most of Spain, Toledo eats it all year round, and the Confitería Santo Tomé is particularly crowded before Christmas, when buyers come from across Spain. Manchego cheese is the city's other famous food product.

Eating is mostly done in the old city's bars and taverns and around Plaza de Zocodover, with set lunches at midday and tapas in the evening. The wines of La Mancha, the largest continuous vine-growing area in the world, are widely poured.