Benidorm

Benidorm municipality
coat of arms	Map of Spain
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Valencia
Province :	Alicante
Comarca :	Marina Baixa
Coordinates	38 ° 33 ′  N , 0 ° 8 ′  W Coordinates: 38 ° 33 ′  N , 0 ° 8 ′  W
Height :	15  msnm
Area :	38.51 km²
Residents :	68,721 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	1,784.5 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	03501 to 03508
Municipality number  ( INE ):	03031
administration
Official language :	Valencian
Mayor :	Agustín Navarro Alvado ( PSPV-PSOE )
Website :	www.benidorm.org
Location of the municipality

Benidorm is a city on the Costa Blanca 45 kilometers northeast of Alicante in the province of Alicante in the Valencian Community , Spain .

Population density

The city has 68,721 (as of January 1, 2019) registered residents. During the holiday season, the number of residents of Benidorm exceeds one and a half million.

history

Benidorm, skyline to the north

Aerial view of Benidorm and the island of Benidorm, looking east

Benidorm skyline

Balcon del Mediterráneo .

It is believed that as early as 3000 BC There were settlements in the region around Benidorm. The area around Benidorm was first mentioned in 1245. In 1325 Benidorm was granted town charter. In the following years, Benidorm was attacked several times by Ottoman and barbarian pirates . An advanced irrigation system, which was supposed to ensure optimized irrigation in the Benidorm region, was established in 1666. In the early post-war years Benidorm established a financially lucrative fishing industry. A perfected agriculture also contributed to the economic strength of the Benidorm region. The former main economic sector of fishing deteriorated from the 1950s onwards.

In the early 1950s, Benidorm was still a fishing village . From 1950, the mayor Pedro Zaragoza had roads paved, the village equipped with a water supply system and in 1956 put up a development plan . The economic focus was now on the tourism industry. Up until 1967, high-rise buildings with hotels for mass tourism were mainly built in Benidorm ; these shape the city known as a holiday destination.

After a relative stagnation of tourism from the end of the 1980s, more emphasis was placed on quality offers: the property sizes per hotel were increased, the houses improved structurally and in terms of leisure activities. The city moved further south and north with large building areas and outlying urbanizations with holiday homes and villas completed the offer. The city has become more competitive again as a tourist destination due to this ongoing rejuvenation and qualitative addition.

Population development

1960	1970	1981	1991	1996	2001	2008	2009	2011	2014	2015
6,259	12,124	25,544	42,442	50,040	51,873	70,280	71,034	68,045	69,010	69,010

architecture

Benidorm has the highest density of skyscrapers (in relation to the number of inhabitants) worldwide with 345 buildings with more than twelve floors. Due to the immense density of high-rise buildings, Benidorm is associated with “little Manhattan ”. A number of residential towers, which mostly serve the tourism industry, were built from the 1950s. The Intempo residential tower , planned in 2007 and not yet completed ; The tallest residential building in the EU (200 meters, 47 floors) is empty due to the Spanish property crisis in 2008 until today (December 2016).

traffic

Benidorm is connected to public transport in the greater Alicante area via the lines L 1 and L 9 of the Alicante light rail . North of Benidorm runs the Autopista AP-7 motorway ( Autopista del Mediterráneo - European route 15 ), which runs along the entire Spanish Mediterranean coast. It can be reached via the motorway junction 65 Benidorm .

tourism

Sight in the evening

Parque de Elche

Since Francisco Ronda opened his first bathing establishment (the Casa de baños on Levante Beach ) in 1893 , more than 85 million tourists have visited Benidorm. The largest group of tourists in Benidorm are visitors from Great Britain .

In Benidorm there are two 2.5 km long beaches , Playa de Poniente and Playa de Levante as well as Playa del Mal Pas between the old town and Playa de Poniente and Playa de Cala Tío Ximo in Rincón de Loix.

The two large amusement parks Terra Mítica and Mundomar are considered to be tourist attractions .

Benidorm Playa Poniente

Town twinning

Sister cities of Benidorm are Miami (Florida, USA), Viña del Mar (Chile), Manizales (Colombia) and Le Cannet (France).

sons and daughters of the town

• Guillermo Amor (* 1967), former Spanish soccer player
• Antonio López (* 1981), Spanish national soccer player

Web links

Commons : Benidorm  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cifras oficiales de población resultantes de la revisión del Padrón municipal a 1 de enero . Population statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (population update).
2. ↑ History Benidorm "holiday-weather.com" platform, accessed on July 9, 2014
3. ↑ Spiegel online: Architect forgot to plan elevator for Spanish skyscraper. Retrieved August 12, 2013 . 
4. ↑ "What to do with all that junk?" In: Mallorca Zeitung of December 13, 2016
5. ↑ Gobierno Provincial Alicante - Municipios de la Provincia de Alicante Hermanados , accessed on October 29, 2017