Bilbao

Bilbao

The town of Bilbao (Bilbo also in Euskara) is a Spanish town and municipality located in the northern capital of the province of Vizcaya province in the autonomous community of Basque Country. With 355,731 inhabitants according to the census of 2009, is the most populated city in the autonomous community of Spain and the tenth being the head of the metropolitan area of ​​Bilbao, a conurbation of over 900,000 inhabitants that stretches along the estuary Nervión Bilbao.

Its main town is surrounded by two mountain ranges with an average altitude not exceeding 400 meters. These chains are some of the natural limits of the municipality. The neighboring municipalities are major Sondica, Zamudio, Basauri and Baracaldo.

Since its founding in the early fourteenth century, was a trading center which enjoyed particular importance in the Cantabrian coast with its port activity was mainly based on the export of wool from Castile and to a lesser extent the iron extracted from the quarries Vizcaya. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a heavy industrialization that became the epicenter of the second industrial region of Spain, behind Barcelona. This was accompanied by an extraordinary and urban population explosion that led to the annexation of several neighboring municipalities. It is now a thriving city of services, 9 which is in the process of revitalizing aesthetic, social and economic, led by the iconic Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

On May 19, 2010 the city of Bilbao was awarded the Lee Kuan Yew Award World City Prize, awarded by the city state of Singapore, in collaboration with the Swedish Nobel Academy. Considered the Nobel of urbanism, was awarded on June 29, 2010.