We’ve covered a rather large portion of the earth in our search so far, finding a multitude of cities with Spanish histories throughout South, Central and North America. Today, I’d like to finish the series off by looking at some cities within the country that started it all, Spain.

Let’s go straight to the top, with the capital of Spain, Madrid. A city of 3.3 million, Madrid is the third largest city in the European Union after London and Paris. Now, I know I seem to say this too often, but, “the exact origin of the name is unknown,”  or vague, subject to opinions, lost in time. Some people believe that it was based on a legend in which the son of King Tyrrhenius of Tuscany was named ‘Metragirta’ or ‘Mantue Carpetana;’ some believe the original name was ‘Ursaria’ or ‘Land of Bears’ in Latin, due in part to the fact there are a lot of bears, which also make an appearance on the cities emblem; However the most popular and commonly accepted theory is that the Roman Empire established a settlement called ‘Matrice,’ and after several battles, and the changing of many hands, the city went from ‘Matrice’ to  ‘Mayrit’ to the ‘Madrid’ we know now.

Let’s travel to the coast, to a city containing one of the most dominant and supported football clubs in the world, Barcelona. The city is home to over 1.6 million people, and it’s here that people have a choice of seven sandy beaches all lining the 4.5 km coastline, one of which was recently given the title of number one beach in the world. Barcelona comes from ancient Iberian Phoenician ‘Barkeno,’ throughout time the name underwent some changes, ‘Barchinona,’ ‘Barchelonaa’ and ‘Barçalona’ until settling on ‘Barcelona.’

Traveling down the coast, we eventually stop at Valencia. The third largest city in Spain has a little over 800 thousand residents, these Valencians are the creators and c onsumers of a popular food known as Paella, which is a word that derives from Old French ‘paelle,’ meaning ‘pan.’ This Paella contains a mix of things such as saffron rice, chicken, rabbit, beans, artichokes, and snails. Valencia comes from the Latin ‘Valentia,’ which means ‘strength’ or ‘valor.’

Now we’ve covered the biggest cities in Spain, let’s take a quick trip south.

Below Spain is the African continent, and within this continent is the coastal country Morocco. Now I bring up Morocco for two reasons; One, because the port cities of Melilla and Ceuta are Spanish cities, and used extensively as commercial trade and military way-points; and Two, the name we know it as is a Spanish word — In Arabic the name is al-Maghrib, “The West.” — but ‘Morocco’ originates from the Spanish ‘Marruecos,’ which came from the Latin ‘Morroch,’ which in turn was used to refer to the Almoravid and Almohad capital ‘Marrakech,’ which translates to ‘Land of God.’

That’s the end of our trip around the Spanish world, can you think of any interesting cities I missed? Do you have any other stories or facts about the cities mentioned?