Miño is a municipality in the province of

A Coruña A Coruña (; ; also informally called just Coruña; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province ...

, in the autonomous community of Galicia,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It belongs to the comarca of Betanzos. It has a population of 6.946 (Galician 2024 Census) and an area of 35,9 km².

Geography

The municipality, with an area of 32.97 km², covers eight parishes: Bemantes, Callobre, Carantoña, Leiro, Castro, Miño, Perbes and Vilanova. It borders Pontedeume to the north, Vilarmaior to the east, Paderne and Irixoa to the south, and Betanzos estuary to the west. It is located 25 km from the

provincial capital A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational division, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encomp ...

, and 72 km from

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

. The municipality is crossed by the English Way of St. James.

Hidrography

The Lambre River flows through the municipality, which after crossing the Porco Bridge forms the Alameda Beach, the Xarío River, which crosses the parishes of Vilanova and Perbes and flows next to the Grande Beach, and the Baxoi River, which also flows into the Grande Beach and receives this name because of its passage over the Baxoi Bridge. There is a Gothic fountain and a picnic area on its banks for pilgrims heading to Compostela to rest.

History

The oldest remains found in Miño correspond to the castrexa era and the remains of a Roman port. In 1916, 1500

Roman coins Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum#Numismatics, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction during the Roman Republic, Republic, in the third century BC, through Roman Empire, Imperial ...

were found in the parish of Perbes, the Algara treasure. The municipality was established in 1836 as Castro, the name of one of the parishes of the

Old Regime Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

that made up the municipality, dependent on the jurisdictions of Pontedeume, Callobre, Vilachá, Leiro and Perbes, which belonged to the province of Betanzos. In 1919, the consistory was moved to the parish of Miño and with it the name of the municipality also changed. Currently, it continues to have its headquarters in the same parish, in the nucleus called A Carreira.

Demography

Culture

Heritage

Archaeological heritage

From the

castro culture Castro culture (, , , , meaning "culture of the hillforts") is the archaeological term for the material culture of the northwestern regions of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day northern and central Portugal together with the Spanish regions of ...

the castro of Loios, castro of Ombre, Centroña, Insua, Santa María de Castro, Carantoña and Leiro are preserved.

Architectural heritage

The church of San Xoán de Vilanova is of Romanesque origin. Construction began in 1040, with the façade being rebuilt in the 18th century. Its semicircular apse has been restored. The church of Santa María de Castro dates back to the 16th century. Over the Lambre and Vixoi rivers (today the Baxoi river), there are two 15th-century bridges, ordered to be built by Fernán Peres de Andrade o Boo (the Kind), lord of Pontedeume. The one that crosses the Lambre river, with a single ogival-style arch, is known as Ponte do Porco, for having carved a boar, the symbol of the

Andrade Andrade (/ɐ̃ˈdɾa.d͡ʒi/ (Brazil), �̃ˈdɾa.ðɨ(Portugal), or �n̪ˈd̪ɾa.ð̞e(Spanish)) is a surname of Kingdom of Galicia, Galician origin, which emerged in the 12th century as the family name of the knights and lords of the sma ...

family. In Bañobre is the pazo of the Counts of Vigo, which preserves original 18th-century elements on its façade.

Ethnography

Festivities and celebrations

In the majority of the parochies the main festivity celebrates a

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

(the most common being dedicated for

Saint John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

, Virgin of Carmel, Corpus Christi, Saint James, and so on.)

Economy

Infrastructure

The municipality is connected by the N-651 national road that goes from Betanzos to Ferrol and by the AP-9 motorway with direct access, which connects with the cities of the Atlantic coast. It is crossed by the Ferrol-Betanzos Infesta railway line that connects with the one that goes from

Lugo Lugo (, ) is a city in northwestern Spain in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia. It is the capital of the Lugo (province), province of Lugo. The municipality had a population of 100,060 in 2024, ...

, and has the Miño station and the Perbes station.

Tourism

Miño is host of known beaches such as Perbes Beach and Grande Beach Blue Flag">Blue_Flag_beach.html" ;"title="oth have the Blue Flag beach">Blue Flag(informaly considered the same beach as Praia Grande de Perbes "Great Beach of Perbes"). But the municipality has also made itself infamous for the Costa Miño.

Urbanism (and the Costa Miño fiasco)

The urban development dynamics in the municipality of Miño have led to the current urban center of Miño, with the structure of a town that has developed along a road (N-651), while at the same time experiencing significant growth with the construction of large residential developments far from the urban center and the services provided by the town center. One of these, Costa Miño Golf, with 1,200 homes (unfinished), extends through Perbes and San Juan de Villanueva. The aforementioned development has consisted of the construction of apartment blocks replacing low-rise houses, with one or two floors, instead of expanding outwards to form a consolidated rural nucleus, surrounded by condominiums. All of this has led to the disappearance of the houses with plots that once made up the urban core. Urban development has thus been somewhat chaotic, as the land in many cases came from former orchards. The most controversial case has been the expropriation of land in Perbes for the construction of the aforementioned housing development. The expropriation method was used to construct a private space, and in some cases, the corresponding compensation to the former owners was not paid.

Miño in popular culture

''Pasei a ponte do Porco,'' ''paseille a man polo lombo,'' ''meu divino San Andrés'' ''o voso camiño é longo.''

External links

Municipalities in the Province of A Coruña {{Galicia-geo-stub