History of Murcia

History of Murcia. About 230 BC, the Carthaginans founded a trading depot at Cartagena, naming it in Punic Qart Hadast, New City. The Romans called it Cartaga Nova, New Carthage, and when they took it in 209 BC it was considered one of the richest cities in the world. The basis of this wealth was the locally mined silver.

When the Caliphate of Córdoba disintegrated in the 11th century, the Kingdom of Murcia came into being as a taifa, petty kingdom, with the Moorish city of Murcia as its capital. It included the present-day province of Albacete, now part of Castilla-La Mancha, and part of Almería. It was taken by the Christians in the middle of the 13th century, but was maintained as a separate but vassal kingdom until well into the 19th century.

The industrial revolution never really happened for Murcia, and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War was hard on the region. In the nineteen-sixties, Murcia underwent considerable demographic changes due to its own emigration and immigration from Andalusia, with the consequent undermining of the native Murcian culture, particularly on the coast. Murcia's interior is thinly populated.

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