Sant Adrià de Besòs () is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

within the

comarca A ''comarca'' (, , , ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain, and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, mark ...

Barcelonès Barcelonès () is the most populated comarca of Catalonia, Spain. It contains Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well a ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, north-eastern

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 is situated on the

Mediterranean coast The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eu ...

, at the mouth of river Besòs, extending to both sides of the estuary although the original settlement with the parish church lies on the left bank of the river, in the northern part of town. Sant Adrià is the smallest municipality of Barcelonès and has close ties with the neighbouring cities of

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Badalona Badalona (, , , ) is a municipality in Barcelonès county, in Catalonia (Spain). It is located to the north east of Barcelona, on the left bank of the Besòs River and on the Mediterranean Sea, in the Barcelona metropolitan area. By population, ...

and

Santa Coloma de Gramenet Santa Coloma de Gramenet (), informally simply known as Santa Coloma, and formerly as ''Gramenet de Besòs'' between 1936 and 1939, is a municipality in Barcelonès county, in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated on the south-east side of the Catal ...

, forming a uniform urban area within

Barcelona metropolitan area The Barcelona urban area is an urban area in Catalonia (Spain) centered on the city of Barcelona and located less than 100 km south of the border with France. With a population of over 5 million, it is one of the largest urban areas in Europ ...

. The municipality straddles major transportation networks and is served by several modes of public transport. Sant Adrià is currently a town dominated by the

service sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...

, but with a diverse manufacturing sector (especially in the areas of metal-work, chemistry, and construction) consisting mostly of medium-sized companies. Historically, it has experienced several massive migration flows attracted by the important industrialisation of the area during the last century and has been subject of various major urban redevelopments. In 2004, Sant Adrià de Besòs was part of the

Universal Forum of Cultures The Universal Forum of Cultures (, was an international cultural event intended to take place every three years. History The first Forum was held in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain), from May 9 to September 26, 2004. It was organized by Barcelona's ...

History

The origins of the town are linked to the parish church of Sant Adrià de Besòs, which was referred to in 1012, where in about 1092 a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

of Augustinian monks, dependants of Sant Ruf d'Avinyo, was founded. Saint Olegarius (San José María de Porcioles) came to this priory from 1095 to 1108 before becoming the bishop of Barcelona and, later, the

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; ) is a coastal city and municipality in Catalonia (Spain). It is the capital and largest town of Tarragonès county, the Camp de Tarragona region and the province of Tarragona. Geographically, it is located on the Costa Daurada ar ...

. In 1127 the priory was moved to Santa Maria de Terrassa. Surrounding this church, upon a small hill fourteen metres high, to the west of the River Besòs, is the nucleus of the original village.

Transport

Given its proximity to the city of

, Sant Adrià de Besòs is well served by

road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

, rail and many other forms of

public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...

, becoming an important part of the transportation network in

. The city has always been an economically unprivileged town and a really dense area, and it remained indifferent to the establishment and the improvement of public transport around Barcelona for many years, but the recent development in

public infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...

s and urban renewals has brought substantial transport improvement, especially in the form of

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

services. C-31 highway comes directly from Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes in Barcelona to

Mataró Mataró () is the capital and largest town of the Maresme county in Catalonia, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, Maresme coast, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, north-east of Barcel ...

and intersects perpendicularly with Ronda del Litoral (B-10 motorway) in the middle of town, forming a major highway interchange, and allowing B-10 to be linked with Ronda de Dalt (B-20 motorway) at Nus de la Trinitat, another major highway interchange in northern Barcelona. Other main roads serving Sant Adrià include the national route N-II parallel to Maresme's coastline and the local road BV-5001 towards Montornès del Vallès and La Roca del Vallès, crossing the northern part of the municipality. Public transportation network is mainly composed of several urban and interurban bus routes that provide a good internal connection within the municipality as well as the connection of the city to other nearby cities within the comarca. Currently, 16 bus routes run through the municipality, 5 of them are local bus routes operated by

Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona The Barcelona Metropolitan Transport, or ''Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona'' (TMB) in Catalan, is the main public transit operator in Barcelona. A combination of two formerly-separate companies, ''Ferrocarril Metropolità de Barcelona, SA.' ...

(TMB) to and from Barcelona, 8 are interurban routes within

, and 3 are night routes. With regard to rail transport modes, Trambesòs is the most prominent transport system in Sant Adrià which comprises 7 stops within the municipality served by all its routes, linking the city to the district of Sant Martí up to Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona. Maresme Line also runs through the city with Sant Adrià de Besòs railway station as the only stop of the line in town which lies in the eastern part of Sant Adrià and is served by

Rodalies de Catalunya Rodalies de Catalunya (; "Commuter Railways of Catalonia") is the main Commuter rail, commuter and regional rail system in the Spain, Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia. It is administered by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Government of C ...

commuter rail line R1. Verneda is the only

Barcelona Metro The Barcelona Metro (Catalan language, Catalan and Spanish language, Spanish: ) is a rapid transit network that runs mostly underground in central Barcelona and into the city's suburbs. It is part of the larger public transport system ...

station officially located in the municipality, but Artigues – Sant Adrià station is as its name says also meant to serve Sant Adrià de Besòs because although being located in Badalona, it is just a few meters from the city limits.

Places of interest

* History of Immigration in Catalonia Museum (MhiC): This museum aims to analyse the history of the migratory processes related to Catalonia, mainly from the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

. It comprises a hall for temporary exhibitions as well as a documentation center, a virtual museum and ''El Sevillano'', a restored passenger railcar used during the 1950s and 1960s by many immigrants to get to Barcelona from southern Spain. * Parish Church of Sant Adrià de Besòs: Built during the 1940s, this church consists of a building with a brick veneer façade, and a large

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

which has

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

s on each side, a semicircular

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

and a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. The façade is flanked by two towers, of which the highest one is the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

. * Air-raid shelter: The

air-raid shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but ...

of Francesc Macià Square (RapM) is one of the four public air-raid shelters built 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 ...

in the city. It is situated under Francesc Macià Square and very close to the former textile factory Industrial Baurier since factories were military targets. This air-raid shelter had capacity for 80 or 100 people and it was finished building in August 1938 but was not closed in

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

until March 1939. It was reopened on 11 September 2006 after rehabilitation and it was not turned into a museum until 27 January 2008. Currently, the RapM is divided into five exhibition spaces with an entrance hall, and is designed as a teaching tool to think over the Civil War and the

post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...

in Sant Adrià.

Climate

Demography

Photo gallery

File:Localització de Sant Adrià de Besòs respecte del Barcelonès.svg, Location of the municipality of Sant Adrià de Besòs within the

highlighted in blue. File:SantAdria_01.jpg, Original portal of the

Carmelite The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

Convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

of Barcelona dated from the 14th century. Since 1993, it is situated in Sant Adrià as if it was a

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

which is locally known as ''Arc de Sant Adrià''. File:SantAdria_03.jpg, Main façade of the Parish Church of Sant Adrià and the square named after the church where it is situated. File:Rbesos01.jpg, View of the river Besòs as it passes through the municipality. In the later course of the river the "Riverside Park of Besòs" was created and has become an important public open space. File:BCN-ParcForum-4923.jpg,

Bird's-eye view A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective (graphical), perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downward. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photog ...

of the Fòrum Park. It was built for the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures and lies between the cities of Barcelona and Sant Adrià. File:Central_Termica_Badalona.jpg, The three chimneys of the now closed Besòs thermal power station have become an icon for the city. In 2008, the citizens of Sant Adrià decided to keep them in a

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

Notable people

* Monkey Black (1986–2014) Rapper born in the Dominican Republic. He lived in Sant Adrià de Besòs where he was murder in 2014. *

Isabel Coixet Isabel Coixet Castillo (; born 9 April 1960) is a Spanish film director. She is one of the most prolific film directors of contemporary Spain, having directed twelve feature-length films since the beginning of her film career in 1988, in addition ...

(1962–), film director, born in Sant Adrià * Javier Pérez Andújar (1965–), writer, born in Sant Adrià

References

External links

*
Government data pages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sant Adria De Besos Populated places in Barcelonès