Gijón

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Gijón / Xixón
City Hall
City Hall
coat of arms Map of Spain
Coat of arms of Gijón / Xixón
Gijón (Spain)
Finland road sign 311 (1994-2020) .svg
Basic data
Autonomous Community : AsturiasAsturias Asturias
Comarca : Gijón
Coordinates 43 ° 33 ′  N , 5 ° 40 ′  W Coordinates: 43 ° 33 ′  N , 5 ° 40 ′  W
Height : 14  msnm
Area : 181.60 km²
Residents : 271,780 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density : 1,496.59 inhabitants / km²
Postal code : 33201
Municipality number  ( INE ): 33024
Nearest airport : Asturias Airport 40.9 km
administration
Mayor : Carmen Moriyón Entrialgo ( FAC )
Address of the municipal administration: Plaza Mayor, 1, 33201 Gijón, Tel .: +34 985 18 11 11
Website : gijon.es
Location of the city
Xixon Asturies map.svg

Gijón [ xiˈxɔn ] ( Asturian Xixón [ ʃi'ʃɔŋ ]) is a university, port and industrial city in Asturias and at the same time the economic center of this Spanish region . The port of El Musel , one of the most important ports on the north coast of Spain, is located near the city on the Bay of Biscay . In the city with 271,780 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019), heavy industry predominates, with steelworks, shipyards and mechanical engineering. It is connected to the railway network via the Asturias Railway. In the Middle Ages and Roman times it was called Gigia . Gijón is also known as the capital of the Costa Verde.

Gijón is located in the north of Asturias, 28 km from Oviedo and 26 km from Avilés, and thus forms part of the metropolitan area, the 20 municipalities of the center of the region, a dense network of roads, highways and railways and a population of around 830,000 (2001) includes.

history

Development since 1900

The statistics reflect two periods of strong growth: Gijón, which in 1900 (the year of the first reliable population survey) had 46,813 inhabitants (258 per km²) doubled the number of its inhabitants between 1920 and 1940 - and again between 1960 and 1980. Started had the 20th century for the small town on the Atlantic coast with a significant slowdown in the economic upturn. The opening of the port of El Musel in 1907 brought new impulses, which soon developed into the engine of the local economy and led to the gold rush atmosphere in the entire region. In 1918, Gijón was largely spared the great flu epidemic , which raged cruelly in Spain and claimed over 40 million lives worldwide. The loss of people was “only” just under 900, which was quickly made up for when the first large shipyards opened in 1920 Workers and their families poured into the prosperous city from the surrounding countryside. When the stock exchange crashed in New York in 1929, the Asturian region got the next boost: Promising hard coal deposits had been discovered and there was already talk of “Spanish Bohemia” (which probably meant Silesia). And after the first coal was finally extracted from the La Camocha mine in 1935 , mines in the hinterland and smelters in Gijón offered thousands of former farm workers from all over Spain a new perspective. Cement production created additional jobs from 1952.

Population development

Source: INE graphic processing for Wikipedia

Parroquias

Map of the Parroquias in Gijón

The municipality of Gijón is divided into 26 parroquias (in English: parish , parish ):

politics

Historical development of the distribution of seats in the Gijón Municipal Council
Political party 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015
PSOE 13 17th 11 12 12 16 13 13 10 7th
FAC 9 8th
AP / PP 1 7th 7th 9 11 9 11 12 5 3
PCE / IU 4th 3 3 3 4th 2 3 2 3 2
UCD / CDS 9 - 6th -
UGJ 3
Xixón Sí Puede 6th
C's 1
total 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27

economy

Blast furnace of the Gijón steelworks
Employment figures in the municipality of Gijón in the economic sectors
Employees Percentage
total 95,816 100
Agriculture, livestock and fishing 665 0.69
Industry 16,537 17.26
Construction industry 9,969 10.40
Service companies 68,645 71.64
Data from the Statistical Office for Economic Development in Asturias , status 2009 (PDF; 112 kB), SADEI

Gijón has traditionally been a center of heavy industry (steel production and shipbuilding). The industry fell into crisis in the 1980s, but there is still an ArcelorMittal steelworks and large companies such as Duro Felguera .

Houses on the harbor

Gijón is the terminus of the narrow-gauge railway line Ferrol-Gijón , which connects the city with Galicia . Spain's third railway line (nationalized in 1972), the Ferrocarril de Langreo , ran from Gijón to Langreo.

Culture and sights

Buildings

Particularly worth seeing is the Palacio de los Valdés , built in 1590 , in whose cellars the remains of Roman thermal baths have been found. The Revillagigedo Palace, used for art exhibitions, contributes significantly to the ambience of the Plaza del Marqués, which is open to the port. Eduardo Chillida has set up one of his most important sculptures, In Praise of the Horizon , on a hill by the sea . The main tourist attractions of the last few years are the city's botanical garden, the aquarium and a modern art and culture center (in the university's monumental building from the Franco era). The approximately 12 km long coastal footpath from the center of Gijón to the beach of La Ñora, completed in 2007, offers some beautiful views over the coast and cliffs of Asturias on the Cantabrian Sea.

The Universidad Laboral de Gijón is located on the outskirts of the city of Gijón, about three kilometers from the city center. The university complex was built in the Franco era between 1946 and 1956 in a monumental style and with impressive dimensions and is the most important architectural work of the 20th century in Asturias. The property of this university is now also used for various faculties of the University of Oviedo . The multinational ThyssenKrupp has set up a world center for research and development on around 2,000 m² in the north wing. In addition, many areas of the complex are freely accessible, as other institutions have also found their headquarters there, such as a LABoral Center for Art and Industrial Creation, the Drama High School of Asturias and the Professional Music School of Gijón . The Scienfic and Technologic Park and the Gijón campus as part of the University of Oviedo now also use the sports facilities of the Universidad Laboral.

The remarkable round church within Universidad Laboral de Gijon

The old monumental building of the Universidad Laboral de Gijón has numerous rooms, some of which are worth seeing, as well as a decorated church in the middle of the building ensemble. The old university complex is the largest building in Spain with 270,000 m².

and display information about the image
Panorama Universidad Laboral de Gijón (built 1946–1956)

Museums and exhibitions

There are a number of museums and exhibitions in Gijón:

gastronomy

to eat and drink

White beans (Asturian: fabes) are particularly popular in typical cuisine - the Asturian bean stew (Spanish: fabada asturiana) with “compango” (smoked sausage, Asturian black pudding and shoulder ham) as well as with mussels, sea spiders, game etc. is well known ., cooked in a typical Asturian tin pot. Fish and seafood are served as main courses directly from the port, based on traditional recipes such as “la chopa de la sidra” (striped bream in cider), “besugo a la espalda” (bream with garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar) or “ventresca de bonito” “(Tuna) to be prepared. Dishes with meat from the surrounding mainland also play an important role, such as dishes with veal or chicken. Typical desserts are “arroz con leche” (rice pudding), “tarta charlota” (frozen cream cake), “biscuit Gijón” and “princesitas de La Playa” - translated the little princesses from the beach. It is a small, artistic pastry made of marzipan that is filled with an egg cream .

All of this is combined with cider, which traditionally accompanies the main courses as well as tortillas, sausages and empanadas (dumplings) on long summer evenings.

Hotels and restaurants

In Gijón there is a wide variety of bars, cafes, restaurants, cider bars, pubs, hotels of all categories and traditional inns. You can also follow the “gastronomic routes”. Most of the streets have at least one restaurant or a cider room; there is a so-called “apple wine district” (Spanish: “el barrio de la sidra”) with a variety of other bars.

sport and freetime

Sports

Gijón marina

The best football club in Gijón ( Sporting Gijón ) plays in the Segunda División . Gijón Baloncesto plays in the professional basketball league.

Gijón achieved worldwide fame as the venue for the controversial soccer World Cup game on June 25, 1982 , in which the teams of Austria and Germany hardly moved with a score of 1-0 for Germany from the second half ( Gijón's non-aggression pact ) , because this result both Brought teams to the next round. Since then, “Gijón” has been used for pushed competitions.

In 2008, Gijón hosted the World Speed ​​Skating Championship, and in 2014 the World Climbing Championship .

leisure

San Lorenzo beach near Gijón and the Cimadevilla district
San Lorenzo beach

sons and daughters of the town

Town twinning

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. ↑ Information page of the community
  3. ↑ "Port El Musel" in Gijón Tourism ( Memento from September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Election 2011 Spanish Ministry of the Interior
  5. ↑ Election 2015 Spanish Ministry of the Interior ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / elecciones.mir.es
  6. ↑ Museos Gijón - biography . Website of the city of Gijón. Retrieved September 18, 2014.
  7. ^ Gijón Tourismo: Cuisine of Gijón.Retrieved September 1, 2014.
  8. ↑ Sportbild.de: 25 years ago: The shame of Gijon.

Web links

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