Costa del Sol Towns
With 566,447 inhabitants, according to the
census of 2008, Malaga is the sixth largest city
in Spain
by total population and the largest as the capital of an autonomous community.
It is also the most densely populated urban area
of the conurbation consisting of the set of localities which are spread along
some 140 km from the Costa del Sol and through
the center of a metropolitan area that exceeds its municipal boundaries
encompassing yet an other 12 other municipalities that total more than 850,000
inhabitants.
Linguistically,
though the only theory that can be sustained without major problems is the one
that points to a form of the Semitic root * mlk 'king, king, to have dominance,
"perhaps indicative of the presence in soil, malacitano of a temple
dedicated to a goddess, probably Astarte (which is called "queen of
heaven" in the Semitic mythology). [citation needed]
If we consider that
the founders of Malaga come from the powerful Phoenician city of Tire (Tiri),
and that this city was the home of the supreme god Melqart, mlk-q (king + city)
and that most of the coins found in the ceca of Malaga show on the back, a
temple on the obverse image of a god, it is not unreasonable to infer that the
temple and the city were involved in this supreme god.
The large municipality of Malaga spans across three regions of
different natural landscapes. The city itself occupies most of the Hoya de
Malaga, an alluvial coastal plain formed by the estuaries of the rivers
Guadalhorce and Guadalmedina. Half the north and east of the mountainous
municipality form the territory of the Montes de Malaga, reaching to
considerable heights, and to the east lays the valley of the Guadalhorce.
Malaga overview
Malaga is a Spanish city, capital of the eponymous province
in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It
is situated on the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Iberian
Peninsula, and just over 100 km from the Strait of Gibraltar.
The city lies on a
bay surrounded by mountains (Montes de Malaga). Two rivers, the Guadalhorce and
the Guadalmedina, flow through the city into the Mediterranean.
Founded by the Phoenicians, Malaga was a
confederated city of the Roman Empire and a
prosperous Andalusian medina, which declined after its accession to the Crown
of Castile in 1487. During the nineteenth century the city experienced
remarkable and revolutionary activity. At stage one of the bloodiest episodes
of the Spanish Civil War, Malaga
was a significant center-level economic autonomy and an important hub of
communications through its port and airport.
Malaga is now a candidate for the European Capital of Culture in 2016.
Origin of Name
Malaga in 1836
The origin of the name is often described as Etimos, the Phoenician word for
salt (cf. מלח mélaḥ Hebrew, Arabic ملح milho), however the different consonants makes
this theory unlikely.
There are similar problems with the
credibility of another tempting explanation from the verb *LQ-H "catch,
grab, twist" with the locative preformante m-* as if to mean the
"place where the twists (metal)" (* malqaḥ or similar), indicating
the presence of a foundry; in addition, this theory is supported by the
frequent occurrence of pliers on the coins minted in Malaga.
Historic Center of
Malaga
With 566,447 inhabitants, according to the latest data published by the INE
(576,725 inhabitants at January 1, 2008, according to municipal statistics),
the city of Malaga is the sixth largest of the
entire population of Spain.
The sum of the population of the municipalities that make up the metropolitan
area amounts to 850,000 inhabitants (INE 2008). In the population pyramid,
21.68% of the residents in Malaga,
is under 20 years old, and 14.11% are over 65 years old. In 2006, there was a
relative increase of 2.09% of the population.
Bordering the north
of the Malaga
region are Almogía, Cartama, Casabermeja, Comares and Colmenar, with Cartama
and Alhaurín de la Torre to the west and Rincon de la Victoria in the east. Malaga is then outlined by Torremolinos in the southwest
and the Mediterranean Sea in the southeast.
During the 1960’s the
population tended to migrate to Europe's more industrialized countries, mainly
Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France. Today the population tends to move to
the outskirts of the city or to residential areas of the metropolitan such as
Alhaurín de la Torre, Cartama, Rincon de la Victoria, and so on. In the last
decade the total population has doubled.
Since the late
twentieth century Malaga has become a focus of attention for immigrants,
attracted by the jobs generated by construction, tourism, and to a lesser
extent, industry and commerce, both from other parts of Spain and abroad.
29,717 inhabitants are foreigners, most commonly Moroccans (19.25% of all
foreigners), then immigrants from Argentina, Sub Saharan Africa and
in recent years, Chinese.
Malaga is also capital of the Costa del Sol, one of the major tourist
destinations in the world, in addition to covering the municipalities mentioned
in Torremolinos, Benalmadena, Fuengirola, Mijas, Rincon de la Victoria, Marbella, Nerja,
Velez-Malaga Estepona, and so on.
Pollution
Vehicular traffic is the main cause of pollution in the city. In 2007 the
cabinet of Air Pollution Control detected a total of 125 days with high
pollution, 97 due to suspended particles and 28 caused by gas ozone. It also
suffers through ‘Dry years’, when newspapers in Malaga reported even higher levels of
particle contaminants in suspension along with other gases such as carbon
dioxide or nitrogen, which in previous years had never exceeded the permitted
levels.
For this reason, the historical center of Malaga is closing to
traffic in an attempt to alleviate such pollution that attacks people's health.
With regard to noise pollution in Malaga,
it has also been found that the city is higher than 65.7 decibels, exceeding
the levels set by the World Health Organization.
