Gijon

Gijón (in Asturian Xixón) is a Spanish city with the historical category of town. It is the only population center of the parish of the same name. Its council —the name given to municipalities in the Principality of Asturias— is the most populous in the autonomous community, with 267,706 inhabitants in 2022.

Geographically, the city and its municipal area are located next to a bay in the central area of Asturias, 28 km from Oviedo and 26 km from Avilés. There they are part of a large metropolitan area that covers twenty councils in the region. This area, backbone of a dense network of roads and railways, had a population of 835,053 inhabitants in 2011, which makes it the seventh in Spain. On the Iberian Peninsula, the town and the council are located in the center of the Cantabrian coast and, on a European scale, in the southern part of the Atlantic Arc.

Since its foundation in Roman times, the development of the urban center has been linked to that of its port, which is currently the leader in solid bulk movements in Spain. Until recently, Gijón had an eminently industrial character, which favored its great growth of the 19th and XX. However, in recent decades, the crisis in the steel industry and the naval sector have led to the reconversion of its productive fabric, transforming the city into a tourist, university, commercial and R+D+i center. Thus, in addition to having a municipal network of museums, it is home to the Margarita Salas Knowledge Mile. This includes the cultural complex of the Labor University, a university campus and a science and technology park.

The city is known par excellence as the "capital of the Costa Verde" and is also the capital of the maritime province of Gijón. The Camino de Santiago runs through the council on its coastal route and the Principality of Asturias Advisory Council, the Principality of Asturias Radio and Television and the Comprehensive Maritime Safety Center for Maritime Rescue have their headquarters there.

Toponymy

The origin of the name of Gijón has aroused an intense debate among scholars for some time. As early as 1899, Miguel de Unamuno already issued his opinion, according to which the word would come from the Latin saxum "rock", which would be related to the geographical characteristics of the location of the city, whose primitive nucleus settled on the great promontory that today is called Cerro de Santa Catalina and where the historic center of Cimadevilla is located. Other interpretations of the time look for the origin of the term in Celtic voices such as:

• gy: «water» + om: “rodeada” (according to Bullet);
• milestone: "great milestone" or "masterpiece" (according to Uría) or
• egi + gon: "a narrow and collected site, high and good" (according to Becerro de Bengoa).

Based on the primitive character of Gijón as a military settlement, Sánchez proposes the word sessio, which appears in expressions such as sessio legionis or in sessione legionum, a theory that would reinforce the presence of "aras sessianas" or "aras sessianas" that some authors place in the Campa Torres and Sánchez interprets as "aras de la sessio" or "aras sessianas", that is, "aras gijonesas". Other explanations have sought the origin of the term in anthroponyms such as gegionus, gegion, segius (according to Manzanares); sassonius (according to Schulze) or hypothetical *iaionus, *ieionus (according to García Arias). On the other hand, according to the philologist Xosé Lluis García Arias, the enormously popular identification of Gijón with La Gigia, cited by Ptolemy, in reality would have nothing to do with the Asturian city but rather correspond to a town located in what is now Leonese territory, perhaps close to the Cea river. It can also be assumed that since the city was founded by the Legio VII Gemina, it owes its name to this.^{[citation required]}

Officiality

The Statute of Autonomy of the Principality of Asturias provides for the protection, use and promotion of the Asturian language in the autonomous community. Law 1/1998, of March 23, on the use and promotion of Bable/Asturian developed the previous standard and provided that the place names of the region would have the official name in its traditional form. Subsequently, and following the steps described by Decree 98/2002, of July 18, which establishes the recovery and fixation procedure Asturian toponymy, the Government of the autonomous community made official the vernacular names of all the population centers of the Gijón council. Thus, for example, the place name of the municipal capital became bilingual: "Gijón/Xixón". However, Decree 98/2002 indicates that in order to change the name of the councils, the process a file in accordance with the provisions of Law 7/1985, of April 2, regulating the Bases of the Local Regime. According to this last regulation, changes in the name of Spanish municipalities will only have official status when they are published in the Official State Gazette. Since this has not yet happened for Gijón, today the Castilian name is the only official name for the council.

Symbols

The coat of arms of Gijón, whose use has been recorded since 1649, represents Don Pelayo, the first king of Asturias, holding a sword in his right hand and the Victoria Cross prolonged with a staff in his left hand. The legend links Don Pelayo with Munuza, who was the Muslim governor of Gijón and with whom he entered into a fight offended by the non-consensual marriage between the governor and his sister. The group is presided over by the Spanish royal crown.

The flag of Gijón is rectangular, with a length equal to three half its width, white, has a red border on its four sides of a width equivalent to one sixth of its length and bears the municipal coat of arms in the center in a version polychrome. It has its origin in the registration assigned to the maritime province of Gijón by the Government of Spain ―Royal Decree of July 30, 1845―.

Geography

Gijón is located in the center of the Cantabrian coast of the Principality of Asturias, Spain, in southwestern Europe, north of the Iberian Peninsula, on a flat coastline at the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains. It forms part of the Cantabrian hydrographic slope and is located at its highest point (Pico Cima) at 737 m s. no. m.. The highest point of the urban area (Ceares) is located at 59 m s. no. m.. The municipality of Gijón has an area of 182.1 km² and a vaguely rectangular shape. The city, which occupies an approximate area of 13.9 km², is located in the central coastal section of the council, in a bay divided by the Cerro de Santa Catalina (Cimadevilla) that separates the San Lorenzo beach to the east from the Marina, Poniente and Arbeyal beaches, shipyards and port of El Musel, to the west.

The municipality of Gijón borders the following councils: Carreño to the northwest, Corvera to the west, Llanera to the southwest, Siero to the south, and Villaviciosa to the east. With Sariego, its limits come to unite at a small point corresponding to the Peña de los Cuatro Jueces, so called because it constitutes the confluence of the councils of Gijón, Villaviciosa, Sariego and Siero.

Northwest: Carreño	North: Cantabrian Sea	Northeast: Cantabrian Sea
West: Corvera de Asturias		This: Villaviciosa
Southwest: Plain	South: Siero	Sureste: Sariego

• Ortofotomapas de Gijón
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  Gijón - Centre

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  Gijón - East

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  Gijón - West

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  Gijón - South

Hydrography

Gijón is part of the Cantabrian hydrographic slope. The most notable rivers in the council are the Aboño river and the Piles river. The Aboño river is the largest and most flowing. It is born in the Alto de la Miranda (Llanera) and ends at the limit between the council of Gijón and that of Carreño, thus forming the Aboño estuary, heavily industrialized in recent decades. This river is dammed at the height of San Andrés de los Tacones, to the west of the council next to the A-66 motorway, and serves as a supply for the ArcelorMittal company. The main tributary of the Aboño is the Pinzales River, of similar hydrological importance. The Pinzales is born in the council of Siero and crosses the council of Gijón from south to north. The Piles River, of great importance because it crosses part of the urban area of the city, is a short river with a low flow whose 10 or 15 kilometers run entirely within the limits of the municipality, crossing the eastern part of the city until it empties into the San Lorenzo beach. There are other smaller streams (Peña Francia, Santurio, San Miguel, Tremañes, Cutis, Pilón, etc.), of which the most important is La Ñora, which forms a section of the border with the Villaviciosa council and flows into the beach of the same name.

Climate

Gijón Climogram

The climate of Gijón, determined by the presence of the sea and the low altitude of the council, is an oceanic climate, with abundant rainfall from autumn to the first days of spring, and more stable and warm weather in summer. According to the data provided by the State Meteorological Agency for the Gijón weather station (period 1971-2000), the average of the coldest month (January) was 8.9 °C, the average of the warmest month (August) was of 19.7 °C and the average annual temperature is 13.8 °C (annual average maximum: 17.6 °C; annual average minimum: 9 °C). Snow occasionally covers the mountains in winter of the council that surround the city and reaches the center of the city sporadically, with an average of one day of snow per year.

The average annual precipitation is 920 l/m². This is due to the so-called slope effect, according to which the most intense rains are located in the highest areas and the least in coastal areas of the center and the west. Coinciding with the season with less rain, there are situations of aridity and drought (11% of the months there is aridity and 9% the water deficit is serious).

Winds are sporadic and seasonal. In winter they blow preferably from the southeast, temperate and warm, due to the retreat to the south of the Azores anticyclone, with which the Atlantic storms follow a more southern trajectory. In summer the situation is reversed, prevailing cold and dry northeasterly winds.

Average climate parameters of Gijón
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	23.6	23	27	28	31.8	36.4	31.4	30	34.6	30.4	26.1	25	36.4
Average temperature (°C)	13.1	13.8	14.9	15.6	17.8	20.2	22.4	23.2	21.8	19.0	15.6	14.0	17.6
Average temperature (°C)	8.9	9.6	10.7	11.8	14.3	16.9	19.2	19.7	17.9	15.0	11.6	9.9	13.8
Temp. medium (°C)	4.7	5.4	6.6	8.1	10.9	13.6	16.0	16.2	14.1	11.0	7.6	5.8	10.0
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	-9.6	-6.0	-3.0	-1.4	2.2	5.8	5.6	5.2	4.7	2.6	-3.4	-6.8	-9.6
Total precipitation (mm)	94	85	74	93	79	47	45	54	70	104	120	104	971
Precipitation days (≥ 1 mm)	12	11	10	12	11	7	6	7	8	11	12	12	121
Hours of sun	103	109	137	151	167.	180	194	190	158	132	106	92	1721
Source: State Meteorology Agency

Average climate parameters of Gijón. (AEMET Climate summaries 2014-2019)
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Average temperature (°C)	14.2	14.2	15.1	16.5	18.2	20.7	23.1	23.6	22.3	20.1	16.7	15.9	18.4
Average temperature (°C)	11.0	10.8	11.9	13.5	15.4	18.0	20.5	20.7	19.4	17.0	13.5	11.9	15.3
Temp. medium (°C)	7.8	7.4	8.6	10.5	12.6	15.3	17.9	17.7	16.5	13.8	10.3	7.8	12.2
Total precipitation (mm)	136	121	103	66	62	55	37	41	65	88	169	87	1032
Hours of sun	100	105	153	177	183	153	171	197	188	155	112	120	1814
Source: State Meteorology Agency

History

Prehistory

Dolmen in the necropolis of Mount Areo.

The oldest testimonies of human presence in what we know today as the council of Gijón date from the Mesolithic and consist of stone instruments called «picos asturienses», found at the mouth of the river Piles and in Tremañes. These tools allowed molluscs such as limpets to be pulled from the rocks, which were part of the diet of the first inhabitants of the area.

Later, in the Neolithic period, a series of burial mounds (primitive burials) were built on Mount Deva and on Mount Areo a dolmen complex considered one of the most important on the Cantabrian coast. In 1990, some surveys Archaeological investigations allowed 30 dolmens to be brought to light, distributed in two different sectors: Los Llanos and Les Huelgues de San Pablo, which according to some experts are grouped in a “certain monumental order”. Successive archaeological campaigns have allowed the study of a burial mound in the San Pablo area and two others in the Los Llanos area. Of differentiated typology, two of them have rectangular chambers and another, trapezoidal with a small corridor preceding it. This last one is an interesting case, since it is not frequent to find corridor dolmens in the Cantabrian area. This dolmen complex is dated to 5000 BC. C. These megalithic monuments would indicate that in the current Gijón council there was an important fixed population, whose objective was the demarcation of the territory that each one considered their own.

Old Age

Recreation of a pre-Roman astur housing in Campa Torres.

There is no news of permanent settlements in the council until the appearance of the forts. The best known of these fortified towns is the one located in Campa Torres (Noega), with its origins in the VI and V a. C., populated by Astures of the gens of the Cilúrnigos and later Romanized as it was a perfect candidate to temporarily accommodate military personnel after the conquest. On the other hand, some authors believe that there must have been some kind of indigenous population in the place that the city currently occupies, although there is no reliable data to support these assumptions.

Volumetric reconstruction of the Roman wall in Cimadevilla.

The Noega fort was progressively abandoned as a result of its foundation in the I century AD. C. of a new Roman settlement at the foot of the Cerro de Santa Catalina, in the current neighborhood of Cimadevilla. This became an important strategic port on the Cantabrian sea route and a regional center or caput ciutatis that reached its splendor in the Late Empire. The 1980s have discovered and documented the remains of thermae (I century to II AD), walls (III century BC IV), houses, cisterns and a salting factory, among other finds. Among the remains of Roman occupation found in the council, a large villa from the IV century stands out in Veranes that preserves the residential part or pars urbana and that of services or pars rustica.

However, the existence of a city has been questioned by some historians, who interpret that the Roman settlement of the hill corresponds to a town with associated baths and that it boosted its economic activity with a fishery. The fortification would correspond to its transformation into a military defensive post.

Middle and Modern Ages

View of the port of Xixon of Pedro Teixeira, 1634. One of the first performances of Gijón

After the Romanization there was a very dark time, which elapsed from the end of Roman control until the arrival of the Muslims. In fact, the transition to medieval times was marked by the progressive loss of urban functions caused by the collapse of Roman civilization. Roman buildings are reused for new functions. Thus, the use of the thermal complex as a place of habitation and funerary space associated with the church of San Pedro has been documented, and in the rural area of the council the town of Veranes was converted into a church and cemetery and that of Beloño into a fortification.

Gijón was the capital of the trans-Cantabrian Muslim domains under the command of the Berber Munuza, who established his residence here and posted detachments of troops. He also placed military settlements at some other key point, as large numbers of troops had crossed the strait. The rest of the region, on the other hand, enjoyed greater autonomy. The domination lasted approximately from the year 713 to 718 or 722. In this last year there was the victory of the Asturian leaders in the battle of Covadonga, started in 718 and led by Pelayo, who would become king of the kingdom of Asturias..

In the year 1147 a large group of Crusader warriors made a stop in the port of Gijón. They had left Dartmouth with the aim of conquering the Holy Land and were surprised by a storm in the Cantabrian Sea. In a document in which these facts are recounted, they call the city Mala Rupis, which in Latin means "bad rock", perhaps because of its inaccessible appearance.

At the beginning of the XIII century the chronicle of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada speaks of Gijón as ciuitas deserta. And despite the fact that in 1270 Alfonso X granted it charter and Puebla Charter, it was an irrelevant nucleus both demographically and economically.

The 14th century, the time when the power of the nobility reached its maximum, was marked by a dynastic struggle after the death of Alfonso XI. It is about a war between Pedro I the Cruel, legitimate descendant, and the bastard Enrique de Trastámara. In the following years, Gijón was the center of struggles between Count Alfonso Enríquez and Enrique III, in which it was surrounded, set on fire and razed during a harsh siege in 1394, to end up disappearing as an urban center. Other sources, however, believe that there was a stagnation and regression in the growth of the urban nucleus without ever reaching abandonment. As a consequence, during this period the rural area of the council became quite important, with the population located scattered throughout the countryside under the protection of churches and monasteries built in the Romanesque style, and also building some fortresses. A notable example of these last constructions is the disappeared castle of Curiel, which served to control the passage from the center of the region to the town of Gijón. Vestiges of this era are still preserved today, highlighting the tower of the Valdés family —popularly known as the Turuxón of Trubia— and the churches of San Miguel de Dueñas in Bernueces and San Juan Bautista in Cenero.

It was not until the 15th centuries and XVI when Gijón began to develop again. This is due to the improvements made in its port, where a dock was built that increased fishing traffic and subsistence trade.

Second headquarters of the Royal Institute of Youth, begun to build in 1797.

In the 17th and XVIII Gijón experienced a great development that made its urban center expand. This was due to the Free Trade Regulation of 1778, which enabled the port for trade with the American colonies. In this way, it became the only one in Asturias enabled for this purpose, and the old dock was also improved and expanded after its destruction. by a storm. Thanks to this, to the improvement of communications with the Meseta and to the creation of the Asturian Institute, during the XVIII Gijón reached a population very close to 5,500 inhabitants. At this time the figure of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos played a key role, since apart from promoting the creation of the institute and other works, he was the one who marked the lines of expansion of the city in its "Improvement Plan", a pioneer in expansion plans.

Contemporary Age

Industrialization and bourgeois development

At the beginning of the XIX century, the town was divided into the neighborhoods of Cima de Villa and Bajo de Villa. Three parts of the new urban space could be distinguished: the La Rueda suburb or Carmen neighborhood —at the foot of the dock—, the Wetland —on the southwestern limit, built on dried marshes— and the Jovellanista expansion. This complex was surrounded in 1836 by a military fence built for the first Carlist war.

Inauguration of the railway of Langreo in Gijón (1852)

In the second half of the century, Gijón experienced great development, mainly due to industrialization. In fact, the demographic growth was such that the town went from 10,000 inhabitants in 1857 to 27,000 inhabitants in 1900. An antecedent of this process was the installation in 1836 of the cigar factory in the old convent of the Agustinas in Cimadevilla The growth process accelerated in the following years due to various factors, such as the exploitation of coal in the Mining Basins and the construction of new infrastructures. The highway to León and the Carbonera to Langreo highway stand out. The latter, inaugurated in 1842, was the first toll road in Spain. The high costs that it generated motivated the search for other means of transport for coal. As a result, in 1852 the Langreo Railway was inaugurated, the first to circulate through Asturias.

All of this made Gijón an industrial town in which the bourgeoisie played a very important role in urban development, creating new streets and squares either through interior reforms in the historic quarter, or through expansion plans to promote the expansion of the city. The expansion project on the sandy area of San Lorenzo was approved in 1867 and was projected on land owned by the first Marquis of Casa Valdés, to the east of the town. The orthogonal plot created then, which begins in the Plaza de San Miguel and ends in Avenida de Castilla, gave rise to the current neighborhood of La Arena.

San Lorenzo Beach in 1911.

Also during the second half of the XIX century, holiday visits began for the royal family, who stayed at the Revillagigedo Palace. Isabel II inaugurated these estancias in the summer of 1858, when she took wave baths on Pando beach, which occupied the place of the current Poniente beach before giving way to port infrastructures. Later there were several royal stays. Alfonso XII went to the same beach in the bathing season of 1877, while in the visit that he made with his family in 1884, the sandy area of San Lorenzo, the main beach of the city today, began to take center stage. Finally, his son Alfonso XIII visited Gijón with his family in August 1900. The city then became a summer destination. Proof of this is that on the beach of San Lorenzo there were four spas.

Between the late 19th century and the early XX the consolidation of a thriving bourgeoisie led to a new model of urbanism. The members of this social class promoted the construction of larger residential buildings with striking façades —some of them influenced by modernism or art nouveau—, in addition to the facilities required by their social and commercial relationships. Some examples that have already disappeared were the old Jovellanos theater, the Obdulia theater-circus or the Gran Hotel Malet. The El Bibio bullring and the Dindurra theater, current Jovellanos theater, are still standing. The architects Miguel García de la Cruz and Manuel del Busto had great relevance in terms of the number of works in the city.

The current Sports Port in 1884. It would soon be small and replaced by El Musel.

This new development was accompanied by more infrastructure. In 1874 the railway section between Pola de Lena and Gijón was opened, part of the line to León completed in 1884. In 1890 the first tram was inaugurated, connecting Corrida street with Somió. In addition, population and economic growth caused the port to remain small. The successive extensions with several dikes and docks did not prevent it from being overwhelmed by the intensity of traffic. As a consequence, the construction of El Musel was added to the aforementioned infrastructures, which would be the first coal port on the peninsula. The works began in 1893 and ended in 1907.

Gijón's plan in 1912. The plot (non-editing) of the ensanche of San Lorenzo (now La Arena district) and El Coto.

Bourgeois urbanism contrasted sharply with the precarious housing and living conditions of the most disadvantaged within the working class. A large number of these people lived in "citadels", groups of small single-family houses of very low quality distributed in opposite rows and with common services to all of them. These were built without a municipal license in the inner courtyard of the blocks and were hidden behind other buildings or at the end of an alley. Among all of them, the one on Capua street stands out, currently converted into a museum. At the turn of the century, the first parcels by private initiative also appeared. They consisted of a layout of streets on rustic farms connected to the urban area by means of an access road. These formed a crown around the historic city, the expansion and the industrial zones of El Natahoyo and La Calzada. The land in the San Lorenzo extension, too expensive for the less solvent demand, was slow to be occupied. Among all the subdivisions, the first one stood out in the Coto de San Nicolás, located to the south of the expansion.

Revolution of 1934 and Civil War

In the 1934 revolution, the National Labor Confederation (CNT) called a hasty general strike on October 4 and eagerly awaited the arrival of weapons and dynamite from the Cuencas Mineras, the epicenter of the revolution. However, the weapons never arrived, allowing the Civil Guard and the Assault Guard to take up positions in the city. The revolutionaries set up barricades, especially in El Llano, and with little material tried to take the town hall on October 8, causing the cruiser Libertad to bombard Cimadevilla. The revolution was crushed and its leaders executed, detained or exiled. This desynchronization and lack of preparation on the part of the CNT did not occur again in its response to the coup d'état of July 1936.

Simancas headquarters building. It currently houses the Immaculate College.

With the outbreak of the Civil War after the coup, the city was controlled by the Republican side due to the anticipation of the municipal government. This was led by Avelino González Mallada, from the CNT, who had swept the municipal elections held in February. The Gijón War Committee was then formed, with anarchist preponderance. For its part, the army, concentrated in the Simancas and El Coto barracks, joined the uprising after an interview with Colonel Aranda —later defender of the siege of Oviedo— and General Pinilla —commander of the divisions in Gijón. The uprising itself began on July 20, when the rebels were surprised by the organization of militiamen and locals, who concentrated their efforts against the Simancas barracks through a hard siege. The rebel ship Almirante Cervera tried to support the military by bombing the city between July 29 and August 9, causing the destruction of buildings and panic among the population. The militia response against the coup of State included the destruction of temples in the city and especially in the rural area of the council, as well as persecution and executions of civilians. General Pinilla's troops succumbed in mid-August, ending the siege. Later the town was the capital of the Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León, which ended up being declared sovereign and became the Sovereign Council of Asturias and León. National troops continued to harass the city; there was no direct battle, although there were continuous bombardments, such as those of the Condor Legion against the port of El Musel and the city in August 1937. Gijón was fortified with anti-aircraft shelters —most of them improvised in basements, although the one dug in Cimadevilla stands out— and even built an airfield in Las Mestas. Finally, the occupation of the city by Franco's troops took place on October 21, 1937.

Francoism

In the 1940s, the construction of the Labor University began and the Gamazo Plan was drawn up, whose approval in 1947 tried to lay the foundations for urban growth in later decades.

The five hundred thousand.

During the postwar period there was a serious housing deficit in Gijón. Towards the middle of the century, different advertisements aimed at increasing construction by both public and private initiative began to take effect. Thus, in addition to solving the problem of homelessness, an attempt was made to fix workers where labor force was needed and to spread an ideology that celebrated the virtues of private property and social peace. However, this was giving rise to numerous groups of houses built outside the urban perimeter or on land planned as industrial, seriously altering the urban planning of the city and marking its development in the following decades. In 1958 the Las Mil industrial estate emerged. Five hundred, the seed of the Pumarín neighborhood. The neighborhoods of El Llano and La Calzada were the fastest growing, with the arrival of immigrants from Extremadura, Andalusia and Castilla among other regions being very important. As a result, in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s the city experienced its greatest development, surpassing Oviedo in population for the first time.

It is also at this time that the Asturias International Trade Fair was created, which in 1963 became the showcase for technique, industry, engineering, tourism and commerce in the region. Since 1966 it has been held at the Luis Adaro Fairground.

Veriña factory, steel plant built by UNINSA.

Steel, a major industry since the late 19th century, became especially important in the 1970s. In 1971 UNINSA emerged as a result of the merger of the Moreda-Gijón, Mieres and Duro-Felguera factories. The concentration of steel activity in Gijón and Avilés meant that the city began to receive population from the Mining Basins, which previously housed this type of industry. The multiplying effect that UNINSA fostered in other sectors also resulted in rapid development. The great increase in the population - from 121,000 in 1961 to 237,200 in 1975 - created great speculative pressure on construction. This brought with it the construction of increasingly tall buildings —especially in the area near San Lorenzo beach and on the grounds of the Begoña glass factory— and the lack of urban facilities and services in peripheral areas of the city. —El Natahoyo, La Calzada, Pumarín and Contrueces.

Deindustrialization and economic reconversion

Elogio del HorizonteEduardo Chillida's work, 1990.

The last decades of the XX century brought with it an industrial crisis that affected the steel industry and the shipbuilding sector above all. like the rest of the Asturian industry, especially the mining industry. As of the 1973 crisis, and especially with the objectives of the Government of Spain to enter the European Economic Community between 1982 and 1986, industrial reconversion occurred throughout the region. Its intensity was such that in Gijón, only in 1982, seventy-one companies were closed. ENSIDESA, the company that had absorbed UNINSA, made staff cuts. Later, together with Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, it became Aceralia and at the end of the XX century it was integrated into the European group Arcelor together with the Luxembourg Arbed and the French Usinor, currently absorbed by Mittal Steel. The naval industry was unified in Naval Gijón in 1985 and the textile industry practically disappeared in 1990. In 1987 the historical record of unemployment was reached, which affected 26% of the city.

In 1986, a General Urban Planning Plan was activated that sanitized several hectares of the El Llano neighborhood. It was the first of several urban plans that dignified marginal areas such as La Calzada and Tremañes or reformulated industrial neighborhoods such as El Natahoyo. With the help of these changes and the recovery of the Gijón economy along with the Spanish one in the mid-1990s, Gijón became a city oriented towards the services sector. In 1990 the transformations that accompanied this began. new stage with the conversion into a public park of the military installations on Cerro de Santa Catalina, in Cimadevilla. The sculpture Elogio del Horizonte, by Chillida, was inaugurated there. In this decade, an ambitious project of public buildings was also undertaken after the demolition of a large part of industrial Gijón. Indeed, the disappearance of port industries left space for the beaches de Poniente and El Arbeyal, as well as the marina. Additionally, the closure of the Moreda Factory gave rise to an entire neighborhood —Moreda—, located in an area that had already been dignified in 1990 by diverting from the railway lines from the North station to the Gijón-Jovellanos station.

Deindustrialization continued in the 2000s, then affecting the city's medium-sized industries and the La Camocha mine, closed in 2008. New neighborhoods such as Montevil, Viesques and Nuevo Roces were also created at this time At the same time, in the eastern part of the city, the facilities that now make up the Margarita Salas Knowledge Mile began to appear. These are the university campus, the Science and Technology Park and the remodeling and conditioning of the Labor University under the brand Laboral, city of culture.

Demographics

According to the 2019 municipal register of inhabitants (INE), the council has 271,780 inhabitants, of whom 143,652 are women and 128,128 are men. The parish of Gijón itself has 257,441 inhabitants. Gijón is the fourth oldest city in Spain, with 26.9% of the population aged 65 or over.

Evolution of the population

The municipal population grew remarkably throughout the XX century, especially between the 1960s and 1980s, the period in the one that doubled. Starting in the 1990s, growth stagnated, as happened at the national level, although due to immigration, both from other councils in Asturias and from the rest of Spain, as well as immigration from abroad, the census returned to grow significantly in the early years of the XXI century. The following graph reflects the evolution of the human resources of the city during the statistical period:

Demographic evolution of the council of Gijón between 1828 and 2021

Population of the parish of Gijón according to the Geographical-Statistic Dictionary of Spain and Portugal Sebastian Miñano.Population of law (1842-2011) or according to population censuses of the INE. At the time of the factual and legal population data, the highest number has been taken.Population according to the municipal register of 2021.

Parish distribution

According to the 2019 gazetteer, the population of the council is divided into 22 parishes (collective population entities). The official parishes of the council are Asturians. The number of parishes has decreased due to the growth of the city of Gijón since the 1960s, which led to the incorporation of the nuclei of the Tremañes parish into the urban nucleus, in the register of 1981, and those of Jove, Roces and Somió, in 1996. All this despite the fact that the population densities of these parishes at the time of incorporation could not be considered as urban and, therefore, did not justify their inclusion.

Administration and politics

Municipal government

The city received democracy in 1979, electing José Manuel Palacio as mayor. He continued in office until 1987, when he was relegated by Vicente Álvarez. In the 1999 municipal elections, Álvarez was replaced by Paz Fernández Felgueroso and in 2011 she was relegated by Carmen Moriyón, the first female mayor from outside the PSOE. On June 15, 2019, the public elected a new PSOE mayor. Since then, Ana González governs in a minority thanks to the votes in favor of Izquierda Unida in the investiture plenary session. His mandate will not be extended after the 2023 elections.

Since the establishment of democracy in the Transition, the political force that has governed Gijón the longest has been the PSOE, which governed without interruption for 32 years, between 1979 and 2011.

The Town Hall, main headquarters of the Town Hall in the Plaza Mayor

Territorial organization

According to the Large Cities Law, the municipality or council of Gijón is divided into 6 districts, which in turn are made up of 45 neighborhoods or parishes, depending on whether they are urban or rural:

Consular Representation

Consulates from Germany, Finland, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Panama, Mexico and Chile are located in the council.

Economy

Playa y Muro de San Lorenzo

Traditionally an industrial city, Gijón's economy has undergone major changes as a result of the harsh restructuring of the industrial sector since the 1970s.

Gijón's economic takeoff began at the end of the XIX century, due to the confluence of several factors:

• The exploitation of coal from the hulleras basins of the interior of Asturias (mainly in Mieres and Langreo). The construction of the Langreo Railway, the third Spanish railway, in 1856, made Gijón the port of embarkation of most of the Asturian mining production, stimulating the trade and the local industry.
• Repatriation of Antilles as a result of Cuba ' s independence, which led to the creation of new industries and real estate investments.

The industrial model generated, typical of the first Industrial Revolution, therefore consisted of a strong secondary sector, with a large presence of the metal, steel, ceramic, glass and textile industries. The tertiary sector, in addition to the commercial activity generated by the city, included the incipient tourist activity of Gijón at the time, which also aspired to become a large seaside resort. However, what was expected did not prosper due to the late rail link that connected Asturias with the plateau.

The next stage of great economic growth in Gijón occurred at the end of the 1960s, due to the construction of the Uninsa (Ensidesa) factory and the activity of the port and shipyards.

After a harsh crisis and reconversion in the eighties, the tertiary sector is currently the most important in the Gijón economy, followed by the secondary sector (steel and metal industries). The weight of the primary sector in the municipality's economy is practically irrelevant.

Margarita Salas Knowledge Mile

In the east of the council is the Margarita Salas Knowledge Mile, a set of business, public, educational and cultural facilities that represent a sum of more than 10,000 employees, 170 companies and more than 13,000 students, one being of the main economic poles of Asturias. The Gijón Science and Technology Park, the Cabueñes Hospital and the Gijón campus of the University of Oviedo stand out.

Shopping centers

The Latvians, in the marina

• Centro Comercial Los Fresnos - Avenida del Llano, this center is located in a six-storey building, among which a hypermarket, various fashion shops, a cinema (Ocine 9 rooms), gym, numerous restaurants and commercial and leisure venues are distributed.
• Shopping center San Agustín - Plaza Romualdo Alvargonzález, a supermarket and numerous shops and restaurants.
• La Calzada - Ocimax Gijón - C/Maestro Amado Morán, s/n, has cinemas (Yelmo Cineplex 13 rooms), restaurants, hypermarket and various cafes and locals.
• Costa Verde shopping center - Calle Ramón Areces, two department stores in El Corte Inglés.
• Centro Comercial Centro Histórico, encompasses the local members of the historic city center.
• Shopping center Option - Calle General Suárez Valdés, local shops, bars, supermarket, gym, swimming pool and outdoors, an extensive plaza.
• La Calzada Open Shopping Center - It covers the different establishments (bars, plumbing, cafeterias, fishery, butcher shops, etc.) of the neighborhood.
• Alcampo Shopping Centre (hypermarket) - Roces Shopping Area.

Services

Education

Colleges and Institutes

In Gijón there are 75 schools where Infant and Primary can be taught and 28 institutes where ESO and Baccalaureate can be studied, most of them public.

Higher Education

In Gijón there are teaching centers of two universities, the University of Oviedo and the National University of Distance Education.

Campus of Gijón

University of Oviedo

The Gijón campus of the University of Oviedo, which is located in the parishes of Somió, Cabueñes and Bernueces, on land belonging to the former Labor University of Gijón, includes the following teaching centers:

• Polytechnic School of Engineering of Gijón.
• College of the Civil Navy.
• Faculty of Commerce, Tourism and Social Sciences.
• School of Nursing in Gijón.

National University of Distance Education (UNED)

Gijón also has the UNED branch in Asturias, where different disciplines can be studied at a distance.

Other studies

• Escuela Superior de Arte Dramatic y Profesional de Danza de Asturias: ESAD has taught at the University of Labor since 2006.

• Professional Conservatory of Music and Dance of Gijón: Founded in 1986, it has been located at the Labor University since 2007 (formerly it was in the neighborhood of El Coto, in the former Cuartel of El Coto), where 18 specialties are studied, including the gaita (since 2006). It has a symphonic orchestra, band, string orchestra, LittleBand and BigBand, as well as about 60 teachers and 600 students.

• Official Language School of Gijón: Located in the neighborhood of El Polígono, it offers English, French and German certificates and classes.

Health

Hospital de Jove, dating from 1804

Gijón belongs to area V of SESPA together with Carreño and Villaviciosa, its main hospital being the Hospital Universitario de Cabueñes. The Jove and Red Cross concerted hospitals are also relevant, as well as the private Hospital Begoña, Hospital Covadonga and a future Quirón hospital in Nuevo Gijón. Other buildings include the Mixed Residence in Pumarín, the Maritime Health Center, all the centers health centers located in various neighborhoods and the large number of private clinics, some with great prestige.

Municipal companies

Some companies and institutions belonging to the Gijón City Council are:

Transportation

Terrestrial

Article 7 of the Law on Traffic, Circulation and Road Safety approved by RDL 339/1990 attributes to the municipalities sufficient powers to allow, among others, the immobilization of vehicles, the management and control of traffic and the regulation of its uses. Gijón has a large blue zone that extends throughout the center and other neighborhoods as well as various green areas in which the maximum allowed establishment is 8 hours. Likewise, a large part of El Centro and practically all of Cimadevilla are pedestrian streets with restricted access to private vehicles.

Main road network

Gijón has a good connection to the national highway and motorway network that makes it well connected with other cities both in Asturias and the rest of Spain.

Hiking

Start of the GR-100

In Gijón there are several approved trails, both Long Distance (GR), approved by the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing, as well as Short Route (PR) and Local Trails (SL), approved by the Sports Federation Mountain, Climbing and Hiking of the Principality of Asturias. The GR-100 (Ruta de la Vía de la Plata) and GR-108 (Travesía Anderiega) trails start in Gijón, while the GR-204 (Senda Costera) crosses it. As for the PR, there are two in the municipality, PR-AS 170 (Río Ñora Route) and PR AS-118 (Fario Route); and as SL, SL-AS 9 (Camino de Santa Olaya), SL-AS 10 (Valle y Arroyo de Rioseco), and SL-AS 11 (Monte Deva).

Other non-approved trails in the council are those of Cervigón, the Peñafrancia river, the Piles river and the Llantones river.

Camino de Santiago

The Camino de Santiago del Norte (or Camino de la Costa), which in its Asturian section coincides with the European Path E-9, runs for 19 km along that of Gijón. In km. 3 is the current pilgrims' hostel (service offered by the Deva campsite). From this point, the official route runs through the parishes of Cabueñes and Somió up to the Piles river, where it joins the alternative route of the Peñafrancía Path, which we could have taken shortly after leaving the Deva campsite. After crossing the city for 7 km, the Way continues through Veriña and ascends towards Poago and Monte Areo, entering the council of Carreño.

Bicycle

Gijón has an urban network of bike lanes designed to connect some areas of the city with each other, as well as a greenway, the Vía verde de la Camocha. Even so, the network presents deficiencies, especially in the communication of axes, for this; Gijón City Council plans the construction of 33 km of new cycling infrastructure, which will double the existing one to about 65 km.

In addition, the city has the Gijón-Bici plan, which allows you to have a bicycle owned by the City Council with the citizen card.

City buses

EMTUSA Line 15.

The public transport service of urban buses in Gijón has been run by the company Emtusa (Empresa Municipal de Transportes Urbanos S.A.) since its creation in 1978. It provides service to the urban area of the city as well as its rural parishes and It has a fleet of buses that run 25 daily service lines, of which 5 offer night service, called owls, which operate on weekends between September and June and daily in the summer period. They also have special services when there are events that require it in the city, such as concerts, football matches, trade fairs, etc. Throughout 2019, the service was used by 18,913,049 users, 1.56% more than the previous year.

Payment for the use of the service can be made in cash, through different subscriptions, citizen card, or the CTA card and is free for all people under 17 years of age.

Intercity buses

The Gijón bus station is located between Magnus Blikstad and Llanes streets, in Laviada, in the downtown area of the city, and allows communication with other towns in Asturias as well as nationally and internationally. It is a private station, belonging to the company ALSA who operates it exclusively or through its subsidiaries. The reduced and old station awaits its replacement by another of a municipal nature in the New Intermodal Station.

There are also other private companies that operate lines between the city and some of the neighboring councils and that make their departures or arrivals to the city at one of the stops set up for urban buses.

Railway

Old North Station, current Railway Museum

Gijón currently has a main train station located on Calle Sanz Crespo, in the Laviada neighbourhood. It is a provisional station, whose construction was motivated by the underground works of the railway in the city and the adaptation to the AVE network, which replaces the old stations of Gijón Cercanías and Jovellanos/La Braña with a view to the construction of a future station Intermodal at the height of the Moreda park.

Lines C-1 of Iberian gauge and C-4, C-5 and C-5a of metric gauge depart from this station, belonging to the Cercanías Asturias network and linking the city with the main Asturian towns. Various Alvia services that connect with a multitude of national destinations also depart from it.

In addition to this main station, there is the La Calzada station located in the neighborhood of the same name, as well as various halts located in the different rural parishes. It should be noted that Gijón was the starting point and arrival point for the trains of the Langreo Railway, inaugurated in 1852, thus being the fourth steam traction line in the Iberian Peninsula and the first of an industrial nature, designed for the transport of coal from the Langreo and Siero mines to the city port. The old Estación del Norte, which was once the main station in the city, is currently the Asturias Railway Museum.

Sea transport

Port of El Musel from Campa de Torres

The port has commercial activities, merchandise transport and fishing activity, being the first Spanish bulk port, the sixth in the general classification and the fourth in terms of exploitation results. Its governing body is the Port Authority of Gijón, on which the marina also depends.

Air transportation

The Asturias airport, which came into service in 1968, is the only one in the autonomous community and therefore the one that serves the council, is located in the municipality of Castrillón, 38 km from the city and connected by motorway, there are also bus services every hour. In 2022, after suffering a large increase in its numbers, it managed to recover the traffic prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and was used by 1,454,763 passengers.

Heritage

Civil architecture

Palace of Revillagigedo

Gijón has extensive civil architecture, highlighting the Labor University of Gijón (1955) as its most representative building. In its extensive catalog of urban heritage we can find buildings such as the Revillagigedo palace, from the XVIII, the Town Hall (Coello, 1865), the El Bibio bullring (1888), the Bank of Gijón (Bellido, 1902), the School of Commerce (Del Busto, 1915), Solavieya (1918), La Gota Leche (De la Cruz, 1925), La Escalerona (Fernández-Omaña, 1933), the Casa Rosada (1940), the Casa Sindical (Somolinos, 1966) or the Palacio de Deportes (Arroyo, 1992).

Religious architecture

Cimadevilla district, historic city centre

In Gijón there are several churches, highlighting the three "historic" ones: San Pedro (Somolinos, 1955), San José (Bustelo, 1954) and San Lorenzo (Bellido, 1901). Likewise, there is a basilica built in 1918 and nicknamed La Iglesiona and a sanctuary, that of Nuestra Señora de Contrueces (1660).

Natural spaces

Los Pericones, the largest urban park in the city

Panoramic of the marina, with the neighborhood of Cimadevilla to the bottom

Culture

Gijón Air Festival

Cultural activity is very broad, and places special emphasis on public education. Since 1981 there has been a Popular University with workshops and courses, as well as a network of social centers and libraries in each neighborhood. Of special importance are the Ateneo Jovellanos, a liberal institution founded in 1953 with the impulse of the professor and politician Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, the Ateneo Obrero de Gijón, a cultural entity with more than one hundred years of existence, Ateneo de la Calzada, the Old Jovellanos Institute and a future cultural center in Cimadevilla, the Tabacalera.

Cultural activities are held throughout the year, which increase considerably in the summer months, especially in August for the Asunción festivities (August 15), with parties, music and theater, which complement the continuous program of the Theater Municipal Jovellanos. Among the consolidated acts in the city we can highlight:

• 

  Universidad Laboral de Gijón
  FETEN European Theatre Fair for children, in February.
• L.E.V. Festival · Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual · Gijón International Audiovisual Creation Festival in early May.
• Book Fair of Gijón/Xixon - FELIX, in June
• Metrópoli Gijón, Festival Media de Cultura y Entretenimiento de Gijón, including a Comic-Con, which is held at the end of June at the Fairground.
• Black Week in July.
• The International Air Festival in July.
• Arc Atlantic Festival in July
• International Folk Festival, end of July.
• International Exhibition of Asturias (FIDMA) in August.
• Gijón International Film Festival, late November.
• Literary meeting La Arribada.

Municipal centers schedule all kinds of shows at their headquarters, notably the appointment with jazz that is held at least once a month at the Old Institute under the name Jazz in the Center. Since 2006, the city has had a choir of white voices known throughout the region, the Gijón Children's Choir, which annually offers concerts from different churches and parishes in the city, such as San José, Nuestra Señora de Fátima or San Nicolás de bary among others.

Museums

Museo del Pueblo de Asturias, which served as a flag of the Principality during the Universal Exhibition of Seville in 1992

In Gijón there are a large number of museums:

• History: In Gijón there are several museums about their own history such as the Roman Baths of Campo Valdés, the Roman Villa of Veranes, the Archaeological Park of Campa Torres and the Citadel of Celestino Solar; as well as two others about the history of Asturias: the Museum of the Railroad of Asturias and the Museum of the People of Asturias, which includes the Museum of the Gaita.
• Art: There are several museums that exhibit, mainly, collections of a single painter: Barjola Museum, Nicanor Piñole Museum and Evaristo Valle Museum as well as one of contemporary art, the LABoral Center of Art and Industrial Creation and another more generalist, the Jovellanos Museum, whose large funds will be exhibited in part in the projected museum of Tabacalera, forming the largest Pinacoteca in the city.
• Nature: The Botanical Garden and the Gijón Aquarium stand out, oriented to the Cantabrian flora and fauna.

Cinema and theater

In the early 1980s, José Luis Garci recorded most of the footage for Start Again, a film that would later win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In the early 1990s there was a boom of indie bands in the town, which became known as the Xixón Sound. Also the comedy The great adventure of Mortadelo and Filemón was recorded in part in the City of Culture of Gijón, known as the Labor University in the parish of Cabueñes. In 2006, the city hosted the entire shooting of the film by the Ulloa brothers, Pudor. And in 2009, Laboral and its surroundings would become Oxford for the Fernando González Molina film, Brain Drain. In 2019, the film Si yo fuera rico by Álvaro Fernández Armero for Mediaset and Telecinco.

Jovellanos Theatre, Begoña Walk.

There are also numerous professional groups in the town, among which are Higiénico Papel, Teatro del Norte, Teatro Margen, Konjuro teatro... as well as amateur groups such as Atrebil, Compañía Asturiana de comedias, Electra, G con G, La capacha, La Galerna, La Peseta, Rosario Trabanco, Telón de Fondo, Trama and Traslluz. All of them both known outside the limits of the town, as well as in the Asturian province, receiving awards and mentions.

The following theaters stand out:

• Jovellanos Theatre, theater built in 1899 under the name of Dindurra Theatre. In 1936 it would be destroyed and opened in 1942 renamed Jovellanos Theatre. In 1995 and 2010, it receives comprehensive reforms that reaffirm the building as one of the highest exponents of Gypsy public culture.
• La Laboral Theatre, theater located in the former auditorium of the Labor University with extensive cultural program and capacity for 2000 people.

Literature

Gijón stands out for hosting Black Week, which has been held annually since 1988, the year in which the Asturian-Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II organized it for the first time, as a cultural event that would serve as the framework for a meeting of the Association's executive International Police Writers (AIEP).

There is also a book fair: FELIX (Xixón BOOK FAIR), which is held during the month of June on Paseo de Begoña and Calle Tomás y Valiente.

Gastronomy

We can highlight within the classic food, as first, the fabes, the queens in Asturian cuisine, either in the well-known Asturian fabada with compango (chorizo, Asturian blood sausage and pork shoulder), as well as with clams, spider crab, with game, etc and the Asturian pot. In the latter, the port provides tasty fish and shellfish from the Cantabrian Sea with which traditional recipes are made such as chopa in cider, sea bream on its back, tuna belly or orios, although the meat dishes of the interior parishes such as veal or pitu de caleya. The typical desserts are rice pudding, charlota cake, Gijón cake, biscuit Gijón, cider chocolates. It should be noted that the "little princesses" are still made by hand.

Gijón is also a breeding ground for young chefs who have rejuvenated Asturian cuisine thanks to the Gijón Hospitality School, on Paseo de Begoña.

Sports

El Molinón football stadium

The town has one of the historical teams of Spanish football, the centennial Real Sporting de Gijón. It plays in the municipally owned soccer stadium of El Molinón, which is the oldest in Spain (built in 1908). In roller hockey it has the Club Patín Gijón Solimar, whose women's team participates in the OK Liga Femenina and has won three league titles, four Queen's Cups and five European Cups. It had a basketball team, the Gijón Basketball, which was in the ACB league for four seasons, three of them consecutive. Currently its main teams are Círculo Gijón Basketball and Knowledge, which plays in LEB PLATA, and Gijón Basket, which plays in the EBA league.

In rugby, Gijón is represented by the Calzada Rugby Club -heir to the now-defunct Revillagigedo Rugby Club, promoted by coach Jaime Fernández Lastra, the oldest rugby club in Asturias, which played its inaugural match at the Campos de Rugby from Universidad Laboral against the current champion of Spain, VRAC Quesos Entrepinares from Valladolid, in turn heir to the GF team from Valladolid, on January 24, 1965- and Gijón Rugby Club- University of Oviedo, also heir to the Section Real Sporting de Gijón Rugby player who came to play in the Honor Division of National Rugby in 1979 in the legendary Viesques field, where they faced the senior team of Wales in 1983 in a friendly match, and in American football for the Gijón Mariners. In baseball for El Llano Baseball Club. In handball by the Gijón Handball Club, Gijón Jovellanos and the La Calzada Handball Club. In lacrosse by Club Deportivo Unihockey Gijón and in sailing the Real Club Astur de Regatas being the most successful athlete Ángela Pumariega Menéndez obtaining the gold medal in the Elliott 6m class at the London 2012 Olympic Games; in golf the Real Club de Golf de Castiello; in swimming, the Santa Olaya Swimming Club; in tennis the Royal Tennis Club of Gijón; in equestrian sports the Club Hípico Astur; and in rhythmic gymnastics, the Club Rítmica Galaica are other prominent sports clubs in Gijón, while the Real Grupo de Cultura Covadonga is one of the most important multi-sports societies in Spain. It has almost 37,000 members and state-of-the-art sports facilities that make the entity a national social phenomenon. Pablo Carreño Busta being one of the athletes that emerged from his youth academies, who on September 11, 2017 entered the top 10 of the world rankings after reaching the semifinals of the US Open.

One of the most important sports competitions held in Gijón is the Gijón International Jumping Contest, which is held at the Las Mestas Sports Complex. Since 1995, except for the year 2008 for reasons of promoting the Madrid 2016 Olympic candidacy, Gijón has been the headquarters of the CSIO***** of Spain (Official International Jumping Competition of Spain), although the first CSIO held in Gijón, was in the year 1987. The celebration of the CSIO means that Gijón is the venue for one of the events of the Jumping Nations Cup during the course of the competition. Since 1942 the Gijón contest has been held.

Another widely practiced sport is speed skating on inline skates. Although, in this case, on wheels. In Gijón there are at least half a dozen teams (AD Astur Patín, Club Patín Pelayo, Club Patín Costa Verde, Club Patín Enol and Calzada Tejanort) that help Asturian skaters reach a national level in competitions that take place throughout the year, especially in the spring and summer months. Precisely, Gijón hosted the Speed Skating World Championship in September 2008.

In 2016 it received, along with 18 other European municipalities (Las Rozas de Madrid, Melilla, Setúbal, Stoke-on-Trent, Tilburgo, Pisa, Molfetta, Ravenna, Crema, San Giovanni Lupatoto, La Spezia, Saronno, Scafati, Chalon-sur-Saône, Košice, Krško, Liepāja and Ruse) the European City of Sport award, given by the European Federation of Capitals and Cities of Sport (European Capitals and Cities of Sport Federation -ACES- in English).

Parties

• Carnival/Antroxu:

Festival of regional tourist interest. It is generally celebrated in the month of February, beginning with the popular Comadres Thursday and lasting until Carnival Tuesday. During all these days, the city holds costume contests, brass bands... parades, the famous Carnival Monday parade and the party ends on Carnival Tuesday, with the reading of the will and the burial of the Sardine. During the days of festivities you can taste the typical Asturian dishes of these festivities in numerous restaurants in the city (Pote Asturiano, Frixuelos, Picatostes...)

• Saint Peter:

Festivity dedicated to the patron saint of the city, San Pedro, celebrated on June 29. During the day it is celebrated with the blessing of the waters and with a typical Asturian country day in the gardens of the Museum of the People of Asturias. As a big day, the city's medals are delivered, as well as the appointments of favorite and adoptive children.

• Black Week:

Noir novel festival, which has grown throughout its more than 20 editions. It is celebrated in July lasting about 10 days and not a week. It begins with the arrival of the "black train" at the Gijón station, in which the authors and authorities invited to the festival arrive. In addition to black novels, there are exhibitions, contests, comics, a book market and all the elements typical of fairs (attractions, food stores, bars, concerts, etc.).

Day of Asturias in Gijón

• Day of Asturias in Gijón:

Festival of national tourist interest. It is celebrated on the first Sunday of August. During the day a tour is held on the Cerro de Santa Catalina. In the afternoon there is a parade of various folkloric groups and with numerous floats, which goes from the Jardines del Náutico to the El Molinón stadium.

• Big Week:

The festivities are held around the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, on August 15, a local holiday. It is popularly known as "Semanona". During the festive days, free concerts are held in the city every day. Two concerts are held every day, one in the Plaza Mayor and the other on the stage of the Poniente beach. In addition, during the days of Semana Grande, the bullfighting fair of Nuestra Señora de Begoña is held, in the El Bibio bullring. The festive days also coincide with the celebration of the Asturias International Trade Fair (FIDMA). The fairgrounds take place at the Luis Adaro Fairgrounds located on the right bank of the Piles River, opposite the El Molinón Stadium. August 15 is the big day of the festivities. During the night from the 14th to the 15th, the traditional fireworks show is held. In principle it is designed to be observed on the beach of San Lorenzo, since the fireworks are launched from the Cerro de Santa Catalina, but they can be perfectly observed from many points of the Gijón geography (Poniente beach, Providencia park...), on the morning of the 15th, the traditional Danza Prima is held on the beach of San Lorenzo and later the famous Restallón, a 15-minute discharge of flyers, which put an end to the festivities. from Gijon. Around this festivity there are different controversies, which place the Virgin of Begoña as patron saint of the city, when the only patron saint is San Pedro (declared as such in 1630 by Pope Urban VIII) and on the other hand, that of the true Marian dedication of the city that would correspond to the Virgin of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Contrueces.

• Natural Cider Party.

Festival of regional tourist interest. It is held the last weekend of August, from Friday to Sunday. During that weekend, numerous markets of the main Asturian cider mills are set up along the Plaza Mayor and the Gijón Marina. During the festivities, contests, tastings, samples of Asturian folklore, etc. are held. The main moment of the festivity is the simultaneous pouring of Cider, which takes place every year on the Poniente beach on the Sunday of each festival, in the that seeks to exceed the number of participants of the previous edition.

• Fiestes de prau and traditional roderies.

Throughout the summer, the parishes of the municipality of Gijón celebrate their patron saint festivities. They are the well-known Prau Festival and Asturian Pilgrimages. These festivities, very typical in Asturias, are held on large farms, in the open air, with booths, food and cider stalls; They usually have an orchestra, contests, games for children, etc. The celebration varies according to the parish (June: Castiello, Cabueñes, Mareo; July: Porceyo, Ceares, Granda, Somió; August: Deva, Roces, Fano).

NGOs and social movements

Gijón has always been a very active city. Many non-formal associations, foundations and movements are benchmarks in the social sphere:

Media

Newspapers

• The Voice of Gijón
• Trade
• La Nueva España (Local edition)

Radio stations

Facilities of RTPA at the Labor University of Gijón

TV networks

• Radiotelevision of the Principality of Asturias (autonomic chain).
• Canal 10 TV (local chain belonging to the newspaper Trade closed in 2021).

Twinned cities

Gijón is currently twinned with the following cities:

Notable people

Additional bibliography

• Ramón d'Andrés (2008). Toponymic Dictionary of the Gijón Council. Gijón Town Hall. pp. 133-138. Legal deposit As-2037/08.
• Blanco, Héctor (2011). Gijón Town Hall, ed. «Gykhon under the bombs». Consultation on 17 September 2022.
• Granda Cañedo, Alvaro (2014). Oviedo University, ed. " Sociocultural effects of the processes of delocalization and deindustrialization in the council of Gijón (2000-2013)".