The Town
Bilbao had been a human settlement well before it was founded in the XIV century. During the Middle Ages, it was a small trade enclave on the route of the Camino de Santiago. In 1300, D. Diego López de Haro granted its foundation charter (Carta Puebla), giving the town jurisdiction over the entire river, and setting the boundaries of what is today the Greater Bilbao. Its commercial impulse was closely linked to the near-by mines, iron foundries, and to the river as a means of communication. This strategic location provided a secure outpost to the seas and the international trading routes.

Starting from its original location on the left bank – the area known today as Bilbao La Vieja –, it expanded onto the right bank, where the San Antón church stands. The XV and XVI centuries saw Bilbao grow as a major trade centre. Bruges, Nantes, and other European atlantic cities found a regular trading partner in the Old Town´s docks, followed later on by England and the American colonies. The popular Seven streets of the Casco Viejo were born in the mid XV century. Further growth continued towards El Arenal until the XVII century, when the streets Bidebarrieta, Correo, and Plaza Nueva, San Nicolás church, and the Paseo del Arenal gave full shape to the Old Town. In the XIX century, Paseo del Arenal became the centre of Bilbao´s social, cultural, and business life.

It is in the XIX century when Bilbao experiences its main industrial development. The mining and steel industries supported the birth of shipping, train companies (1,000 Km of tracks were built from 1814 to 1891), banking and the Stock Exchange. Even though this was a pollitically turbulent period – Napoleon´s invasion (1808), four sieges during the two Carlist civil wars (1835–36 and 1873–76) –, the economic expansion was unprecedented.

At the turn of the century, the city started its expansion towards the opposite bank resulting in the formation of the Ensanche area. Its rationalist design, circular plazas and tree-lined avenues, provided the layout for the grand apartment blocks of the new bourgeois class, with the Arenal bridge as its symbol. The Gran Vía became the new artery of the city, and in the 1950’s and 1960´s it continued its growth towards the Indautxu area.

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