• Area : 29 434 km²
• Population : 2 825 020 inhabitants (1995)
• Languages : Galician; Spanish
• Capital : Santiago de Compostela
• Political status : Autonomous Community of Spain since 1981
  

  THE SEVEN MAJOR CITIES

  Here you are the present seven major cities of Galicia: Vigo, A Coruña, Santiago, Ourense, Pontevedra, Lugo and Ferrol. They are the only settlements that exceed the 50,000 inhabitants.
  

Vigo and its bay

The biggest human concentration of Galicia is placed in this industrious city, founded some 4,000 years ago in a privileged maritime settlement. Its present population exceeds the 300,000 inhabitants, and the Vigo Bay area exceeds the 500,000.

Vigo is known as "The City of the Olive Tree", as this is its emblem, the symbol of peace. In the 14th century the religious warrior order of the Knight-Templars seized the joint cathedral of Santa María (no longer standing today) and in its atrium planted an olive tree, the symbol of peace, and a reminder of Jesus Christ entering Jerusalem. The Knight-Templars eventually disappeared from Vigo, as happened in the rest of Europe, but they left their legacy in the symbol of the olive tree. In the 19th century the old church of Santa María was torn down and the olive tree disappeared. Manuel Ángel Pereyra, however, had taken a cutting of the tree and his descendants planted it in the Paseo de Alfonso XII, where it stands today. On its bronze plaque there is an inscription expressing the promise made by the people to Vigo to give "love, loyalty and self-sacrifice to the city". The olive tree is included on the heraldic emblem of the city, along with a castle and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Atlantic Ocean and Vigo are quite inseparable. From 16th century the port of O'Berbés has had a very important and universal traffic, being affected by Francis Drake's piracies. In 1702 it took place the battle of Rande in the Vigo Bay's waters, in which Spanish fleet was sunk by English and Dutch navies. The big treasure that shipped the Spanish boats was lost and never found in the Bay.

The beginning of the 19th century was marked by the Napoleonic Wars. Vigo was the last city in Galicia to surrender to the French invader and the first to be liberated. The so-called "Reconquest of Vigo" started out with a guerrilla war until it snowballed into a true popular liberation army, that would defeat and capture the entire French garrison. There is a monument commemorating the victory of the city over the French in March 27th, 1809.

In the 19th century Vigo became capital of its province, starting the industrial and commercial renewal, becaming the most important city of Galicia and the best pillar of Galician economy.

It's worth to be visited the neoclassic Colexiata de Santa María in the old downtown, its urban center, with its broad streets and avenues, or the Quiñóns de León Museum at the pazo of Castrelos, containing an important collection of modern painting and Celtic archaeology items. Not to be forgotten the viewpoints of O Castro (with its Celtic archeological remains), A Guía and O'Pozo mounts, with splendid vistas over the Bay, the near Cíes islands and the A Madroa zoo.