Mondragón (in

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

: Arrasate) officially known as Arrasate/Mondragón, is a town and municipality in

Gipuzkoa Gipuzkoa ( , ; ; ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiqu ...

Province, Basque Country, Spain. Its population in 2015 was 21,933.

Toponymy

The current official name of the municipality is Arrasate/Mondragón. This dual designation resolves a dispute that dates back several decades and establishes that the municipality is called both Arrasate and Mondragón in either of the two official languages, Spanish or Basque. In Basque, the term ''Mondragoe'' is also used, a Basque adaptation derived from the Romance Mondragón.

Economic and historical significance

The town is best known as the birthplace of the

Mondragon Corporation The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and cooperative federation, federation of worker cooperatives based in the Euskal Herria, Basque region of Spain. It was founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956 by Father José María Arizmendiarrie ...

, the world's largest

worker cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and Workers' self-management, self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a Company, firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one ...

, whose foundation was inspired in the 1940s by the Catholic priest

José María Arizmendiarrieta José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga (Markina-Xemein, Biscay, Spain, April 22, 1915 – Mondragón, Gipuzkoa, Spain, November 29, 1976) was a Spaniard, Spanish Catholic Church, Catholic priest and promoter of the cooperative companies of the ...

. In 2002 the MCC contributed 3.7% to the total

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

of the Basque Country and 7.6% to the industrial GDP. The valley of the High Deba where the town is located enjoyed a high level of employment in the 1980s while the rest of the Basque industrial areas suffered from the steel crisis. Noted poverty expert and sociology professor Barbara J. Peters of

Stony Brook Southampton Stony Brook Southampton is a campus location of Stony Brook University, located in Southampton, New York, between the Shinnecock Indian Reservation and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on the eastern end of Long Island. History Southampton Colleg ...

has studied the incorporated and entirely resident-owned town of Mondragón. "In Mondragón, I saw no signs of poverty. I saw no signs of extreme wealth," Peters said. "I saw people looking out for each other…. It's a caring form of capitalism." The spa at Santa Águeda (now a psychiatric hospital) was the location of the 1897 murder of Spanish

monarchist Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...

politician

Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (8 February 18288 August 1897) was a Spanish people, Spanish politician and historian known principally for serving six terms as Spanish Prime Minister, prime minister and his overarching role as "architect" of the ...

by Michele Angiolillo.

Mondragón University

Mondragón serves as base of Mondragón University, a private university created in 1997, that is connected with the MCC companies. Almost all of the university's graduates find their first job within three months after completing their studies due to this strong link. Mondragón University is divided into engineering, humanities, and enterprise faculties. The faculty of engineering is in Mondragon and Goierri. The humanities faculty is in Eskoriatza and the enterprise faculty is in

Bidasoa __NOTOC__ The Bidasoa (; ; , ) is a river in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France that runs largely south to north. Named as such downstream of the village of Oronoz-Mugairi (municipality of Baztan) in the province of Navar ...

and Oñati. The student enrollment is approximately 3,500 and is rapidly growing. The majority of the students are from

and surrounding villages, although in the last few years, the number of students from

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

San Sebastián San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián (, ), is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, from the France–Spain border ...

, and the Basque Country capital,

Vitoria-Gasteiz Vitoria-Gasteiz (; ; also historically spelled Vittoria in English) is the seat of government and the capital city of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country and of the provinces of Spain, province of Álava in northern Spain. I ...

, has increased significantly.

Politics and government

After the establishment of democracy, the first mayor elected in Mondragón was the nationalist José Antonio Ardanza, who served from 1979 to 1983 and later became

lehendakari The President of the Basque Government (, ), usually known in the Basque language as the Lehendakari (, ), is the head of government of the Basque Autonomous Community. The lehendakari leads the executive branch of the regional government. T ...

of the

Basque government The Basque Government (, ; ) is the governing body of the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain. The head of the Basque government is known as the '' Lehendakari''. The Lehendakari is appointed by the Basque Parliament every four years, after a re ...

from 1985 to 1999.

In film

Pierre Boutron's

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

film ''Fiesta!'', adapted from a novel written by

José Luis de Vilallonga José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...

, was set in Mondragón during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

Archaeology

Excavating at the Artazu VII site located in the Kobate Quarry in Arrasate.

References

External links

General information of Arrasate/Mondragón
(Spanish)
Pictures of Arrasate/Mondragón in FLICKRMunicipality pages in Basque and SpanishMondragon University homepageARRASATE/MONDRAGÓN in the Bernardo Estornés Lasa - Auñamendi Encyclopedia (Euskomedia Fundazioa)
Information available in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mondragon Municipalities in Gipuzkoa Debagoiena