40 Facts About Bilbao

Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the province of Biscay and in the Basque Country as a whole.

Bilbao is the main urban area in what is defined as the Greater Basque region.

Bilbao is located in the north-central part of Spain, some 16 kilometres south of the Bay of Biscay, where the economic social development is located, where the estuary of Bilbao is formed.

Nowadays, Bilbao is a vigorous service city that is experiencing an ongoing social, economic, and aesthetic revitalisation process, started by the iconic Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, and continued by infrastructure investments, such as the airport terminal, the rapid transit system, the tram line, the Azkuna Zentroa, and the currently under development Abandoibarra and Zorrozaurre renewal projects.

Bilbao is home to football team Athletic Club, a significant symbol for Basque nationalism due to its promotion of only Basque players and being one of the most successful clubs in Spanish football history.

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On 19 May 2010, the city of Bilbao was recognised with the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, awarded by the city state of Singapore, in collaboration with the Swedish Nobel Academy.

On 8 November 2017, Bilbao was chosen the Best European City 2018 at The Urbanism Awards 2018, awarded by the international organisation The Academy of Urbanism.

Bilbao said that it was a Basque custom to name a place after its location.

Bilbao holds the historic category of township, with the titles of "Very noble and very loyal and unbeaten" .

Previously, at least since 1511, the banner that the Bilbao Consulate was wearing was white with a red Cross of Burgundy.

Bilbao was one of the first towns founded in the fourteenth century, during a period in which approximately three-quarters of the Biscayan cities were developed, among them Portugalete in 1323, Ondarroa in 1327, Lekeitio in 1335, and Mungia and Larrabetzu in 1376.

In 1602 Bilbao was made the capital of Biscay, a title previously held by Bermeo.

In 1791, the city of Nueva Bilbao was founded in Chile, at the time a remote colony of the Spanish Empire.

Spanish Civil War in Bilbao started with a number of small uprisings suppressed by the Republican forces.

Since the mid-1990s, Bilbao has been in a process of deindustrialization and transition to a service economy, supported by investment in infrastructure and urban renewal, starting with the opening of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, and continuing with the Euskalduna Conference Centre and Concert Hall, Santiago Calatrava's Zubizuri, the metro network by Norman Foster, the tram, the Iberdrola Tower and the Zorrozaurre development plan, among others.

Bilbao is located near the northern edge of the Iberian Peninsula, about 16 kilometres from the Bay of Biscay.

Bilbao is located on the Basque threshold, the range between the larger Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees.

Inside Bilbao there are two secondary folds, one in the northeast, composed of Mounts Artxanda, Avril, Banderas, Pikota, San Bernabe, and Cabras; and other in the south, composed of Mounts Kobetas, Restaleku, Pagasarri and Arraiz.

Since then, Bilbao has experienced an exponential growth in population thanks to industrialisation.

City of Bilbao is the capital of the province of Biscay and as such it is home of the administrative entities that pertain to the provincial administration, both from the autonomous and central governments.

In 2008 and 2010, Bilbao won the Municipal Transparency Prize, awarded by the Spanish division of Transparency International.

Originally, the city of Bilbao comprised the Old Town and some houses on the left side of the estuary, today known as Bilbao la Vieja.

Bilbao has been the economic centre of the Basque autonomous community since the original establishment of the Consulate of the Sea in the city in the 16th century, mostly thanks to the commerce in Castilian products on the town's port.

Port of Bilbao is a first-class commercial port and is among the top five of Spain.

Plans to create a stock exchange market in Bilbao began in the early 19th century, even though it would not be realized until 21 July 1890.

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Bilbao's institution is one of the country's four regional stock exchanges, joining Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia as Spain's commercial centres.

Bilbao was appointed a "City of Design" by UNESCO in 2014 and has been part of the Creative Cities Network since then.

Bilbao has more than a dozen museums covering a range of fields including art, science, and sport, which have played a central role in Bilbao being named one of the most creative cities in the world.

The city has several specialised museums, like the Maritime Museum Estuary of Bilbao, located next to the Estuary of Bilbao, which holds ships and other collection related to the region's fishing and shipbuilding culture, being particularly relevant the Carola crane, last remaining element of the Euskalduna shipyard that existed where the museum now stands.

Bilbao is the birthplace of famous composer Juan Crisostomo Arriaga, who lived his formative years in the city before moving to Paris at age 15.

Also native from Bilbao were the soprano singer Josefa Cruz de Gassier and Natividad Alvarez, nicknamed Nati, la bilbainita a dancer and castanets player who achieved national fame in the early 20th century.

Bilbao is the host of the SAIL in Festival, a yearly event centered exclusively around sailing, which brings together international representatives of this sport.

Traditional Bilbao dishes are centered around products from the sea and the estuary, such as eels and cod.

Bilbao is connected to three major motorways and a series of minor roads of national and provincial level.

Minor roads passing through Bilbao or starting in the city itself include the national road N-634 which connects San Sebastian with Santiago de Compostela and runs parallel to the A-8 and AP-8 motorways.

Bilbao is served by the Bilbao Airport, the busiest terminal in the Basque Country and in the entire Northern coast, with more than 5.

Metro Bilbao, established in 1995, operates two underground lines with some overground sections .

Bilbao was created in 1992 after the merging of Iberduero and Hidroelectrica Espanola and it is in charge of production and distribution of electricity.

In Bilbao, there is a prevalence of model D in Primary School, while Compulsory Secondary Education students favour model B .

Athletic Bilbao was one of the founding members of the Spanish football league, La Liga, and has played in the Primera Division ever since – winning it on eight occasions.