Almuñécar

Historia

Almuñécar is a municipality in the Spanish Autonomous Region of Andalusia on the Costa Tropical between Nerja (Málaga) and Motril. It has a subtropical climate. Almuñécar lies in the province of Granada, and has around 27,700 citizens (2012). Since 1975, the town has become one of the most important tourist towns in Granada province and on the Costa Tropical; it has good transport connections and a football (soccer) stadium.Almuñécar is an important setting in Laurie Lee's account of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, and referred to as "Castillo" to disguise people's identities.Almuñécar's coat of arms, which shows the turbaned heads of three Barbary pirates floating in the sea, was granted to the town by King Carlos I in 1526 for its having destroyed a Berber raiding force.PoliticsTrinidad Herrera is the first woman to be elected mayor of Almuñecar. Although Juan Carlos Benavides' Covergencia Andaluza party won the most popular votes, he failed to form a coalition. The city council elected Herrera, local leader of the Partido Popular, on 11 June 2011.HistoryAlmuñécar began as a Phoenician colony named Sexi, and even today, some of its inhabitants still call themselves Sexitanos. Under the Moors, Almuñécar blossomed as the fishing town of al-Munakkab (المُنَكَّب) or Ḥiṣn-al-Munakkab (حصن المنكب). Although the Phoenician and Roman history of the district was known from Greek and Roman sources it was not until the 1950s that significant archaeological evidence was discovered.