Everything you wanted to know about the resort of Marbella!

Surface Area: 114.3 square kilometres

Population: about 117,000

What the natives are called: Marbellíes

Monuments: the Río Verde Roman villa, Vega del Mar Paleo-Christian basilica, Roman baths or hot springs of Guadalmina, La Encarnación church, Arabic fortress, hospitals of San Juan de Dios and Bazán, Casa del Corregidor (House of the Magistrate), Santo Cristo de la Vera Cruz hermitage, Santo Cristo church, Cortijo Miraflores museum, Museo de Arte Mecánico (Museum of Mechanical Art), Museo del Bonsái (Bonsai Museum), and the Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo (Museum of Contemporary Spanish Engraving).

Geographical Location: in the centre of the western Costa del Sol, between the slopes of the Sierra Blanca range and the coast. The city is 56 kilometres from Málaga. The municipality records an average annual rainfall of 630 litres per square metre and the average temperature is 18º C.

Tourist Information: Tourism Office, Glorieta de la Fontanilla (29600). Telephone : 952 774 693; Fax : 952 774 693

Some more information and history: The unmistakable silhouette of the Sierra Blanca range is visible from any point in the municipality and is the geographic feature that best defines this territory. The municipality is especially mountainous in the northern part, where some peaks exceed 1,000 metres, and is furrowed by countless streambeds that still provide something of a natural setting for the luxurious and aggressive urban development this place has experienced for the last few decades.

In spite of the fact that huge building developments have even penetrated spaces far from the coastal strip and despite the dubious suitability of certain brick masses to the surrounding landscape there are still in the environs of Marbella sizable stands of old-growth cork oaks, large pine woods and some olive groves. Along with newly built private gardens and the tended turf of the golf courses (there are 14 in this municipality) they make greenery a true basic resource for attracting the very affluent tourists who frequent this locality.

What is now the second largest city in the province of Málaga hosted its first few settlers in the Paleolithic period, as is shown by the tools and weapons found at the place called Coto Correa, in the area of Las Chapas, and in the Pecho Redondo cave (from the Neolithic period), in the southern foothills of the Sierra Blanca range. There is no trace of any other civilisation until late in the Carthaginian domination, of which there are the remains of what may have been a trading post at Río Verde, some five kilometres from Marbella.

Rome left notable evidence of its passage through these lands, such as the Río Verde villa, the Guadalmina bathhouses and various materials found in the historic district of the city. Some students of the subject do not discard the possibility that the nucleus of present-day Marbella was founded by the Romans, and some even point out that it may be the famous Iberian Salduba spoken of by Pliny and Ptolemy. In any event the perimeter of the city, which was no doubt fortified, must have coincided with the present historic centre.

While the ruins of towers and walls of the castle that are still standing are from the Muslim era, the lowest part of the construction is Roman, as are also the foundations of several buildings on the Los Naranjos square in the central district This all indicates that the locality must have had a certain importance during the Roman occupation. The Paleochristian basilica of Vega del Mar, adjoining San Pedro de Alcántara, is from the Visigoth era and is one of the most remarkable structures built in Spain during that period.

Beginning with the Muslim invasion, this locality was ruled by various dynasties until the Benimerins came to power in 1274. Later, as with the rest of the region, it was to belong to the Kingdom of Granada until it was conquered by the Catholic Monarchs in 1485. In the sixteenth century the city underwent a remarkable change in its urban layout, beginning with the levelling of part of the “Medina”, or historic city centre, to make space for a central plaza, today's Plaza de los Naranjos, and a street to link this new urban space with the sea. The city's name of Barbesula during the Roman era became Barbella under the Arabs, from which the Christians coined the name Marbella.

In view of the present appearance of the city it is hard to imagine that in the nineteenth century Marbella was one the most heavily developed mining regions in Spain, with blast furnaces for exploiting the iron from the mines in the Sierra Blanca range. Within a century the city went from being the standard of reference for industry to being one of the highest-level tourism destinations in the world.