Denia

📖 History of Denia

The area had Iberian settlements, such as the one at Alt de Benimaquia, on the slopes of the Montgó. The city was born with Rome: Dianium, next to a natural harbour, appears in the 1st century BC as a naval base for Sertorius's troops and later grew into a municipium, exporting the district's wine. Between 636 and 693 it was the seat of a Visigothic bishopric. Its great moment came under Islam: in 1010 the Amirid Mujahid made Daniyya the capital of an independent taifa that ruled the Balearic Islands, minted its own coinage and became a cultural centre of al-Andalus. The taifa fell to that of Zaragoza in 1076. The Christian conquest in the 13th century emptied the medina, and in 1308 Jaime II founded the Vila de Dénia within the castle walls. Centuries later, as a marquisate, it was tied to the Sandoval family: the Duke of Lerma, favourite of Philip III, obtained city status for it on 4 April 1612. Three years earlier, in 1609, some 25.000 expelled Moriscos had embarked from its port, leaving the territory in ruins. In the War of the Spanish Succession Dénia backed Archduke Charles and was taken by the Bourbon forces on 17 November 1708; the castle palace was destroyed and the stronghold was abandoned in 1859. The 19th century brought the raisin trade: the population grew from 6.538 to 12.413 between 1860 and 1900, bourgeois mansions went up and, from 1904, a toy industry took off. The raisin crisis brought everything to a halt in the early 20th century until, from the 1960s, tourism became the backbone of the economy. In 2015 Unesco declared it a Creative City of Gastronomy, and in January 2025 the renovation of TRAM line 9 was completed, the old 'trenet' that has linked it with Benidorm since 1915.