Málaga

Málaga (; ) is a municipality of Spain and the capital of the province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 592,346 in 2024, it is the 2nd-largest city in Andalusia and the 6th-largest in the country. It lies in Southern Iberia on the Costa del Sol () of the Mediterranean, primarily on the left bank of the Guadalhorce. The urban core originally developed in the space between the Gibralfaro Hill and the Guadalmedina.

Málaga's history spans about 2,800 years, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe. According to most scholars, it was founded about 770BC by the Phoenicians from Tyre as Malaka. From the 6th centuryBC the city was under the hegemony of Ancient Carthage, and from 218BC, it was under Roman rule, economically prospering owing to garum production. In the 8th century, after a period of Visigothic and Byzantine rule, it was placed under Islamic rule. In 1487, the Crown of Castile gained control in the midst of the Granada War. In the 19th century, the city underwent a period of industrialisation followed by a decay in all socioeconomic parametres in the last third of the century.