Some data to understand the importance of the city of Vigo within Spain

@ElentirENG ES 5·13·2023 · 18:19 0

As you know, Counting Stars is published from the city of Vigo, in Galicia, northwest of Spain. A very important city.

Vigo: the Moon over the Diamond Bastion of the Castle of El Castro
The visit to Vigo of the patrol vessel LÉ William Butler Yeats of the Irish Naval Service

Often, people from other Spanish communities come to Vigo and are surprised to see the size of the city. The cliché image many people have of Galicia is small cities, villages and cows. And it is not like that. I have decided to give some notes for those who do not know Vigo or the weight it has in Spain:

• Vigo, with 292,374 inhabitants, is the most populous city in Galicia, and the only one in this community with more than 250,000 inhabitants (La Coruña has 244,700, taking as reference the statistical data corresponding to January 1, 2022).
• Vigo is the 14th most populous city in Spain and the largest in the northwest of our country. In the entire northwest quadrant of Spain you will not find any more populated city until Valladolid (438 km away).
• Vigo is the second most populous city in the northern strip of Spain. Only Bilbao surpasses it in population within that strip.
• Vigo is the second most populated city on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula. It is only surpassed by Lisbon in population within that strip.
• Vigo is the largest city in Spain that is not the capital of a province, handily surpassing Gijón (267,706 inhabitants) and Hospitalet (265,444 inhabitants).
• Vigo is the economic engine of Galicia. In 2020 the city had a GDP of 7,759 million euros, almost a billion more than La Coruña, according to data from the Galician Institute of Statistics published in December 2022.
• Vigo is home to the car factory with the highest production in Spain, Stellantis (previously called PSA Peugeot-Citroën), with 15 million vehicles manufactured in 2021. Its production represents 27.5% of Galician exports.
• Vigo has the largest fishing port in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Its Berbés fishing port employs more than 10,000 people. It is also the headquarters of Nueva Pescanova, which has the largest freezer fishing fleet in the world, with more than 60 vessels fishing in the southern hemisphere.
• Vigo has the Maritime Captaincy with the most Maritime Districts in Spain, eight in total (according to the Ministry of Transport), surpassing the captaincies of La Coruña (seven districts), Alicante and Santander (with six districts each).
• On the sporting front, Vigo has the only First Division football team in Galicia and in all of northwestern Spain, Celta de Vigo. The closest cities with teams in this category are Valladolid and Bilbao.

I hope this information will help many to get to know my city better, and above all to know how to value it in its fair measure, beyond the fact that Vigo is not a provincial capital.

---

Photo: Elentir.