Costa del Sol

Málaga is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia and the sixth most populous in the country. It lies in Southern Iberia on the Costa del Sol of the Mediterranean, primarily in the left bank of the Guadalhorce. The urban core originally developed in the space in between the Gibralfaro Hill and the Guadalmedina.

Fuengirola, in ancient times known as Suel and then Suhayl, is a large town and municipality on the Costa del Sol in the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. It is located on the central coast of the province and integrated into the region of the Costa del Sol and the Commonwealth of Municipalities of the Costa del Sol Occidental.

Mijas is a municipality in the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Located on the southeastern coast of Spain, Mijas belongs to the region of Costa del Sol Occidental. Its center is a typical Andalusian white-washed village, Mijas Pueblo, located on a mountainside about 430 metres or 1,476 feet above sea level, in the heart of the Costa del Sol region.

Marbella is a city and municipality in southern Spain, belonging to the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is part of the Costa del Sol and is the headquarters of the Association of Municipalities of the region; it is also the head of the judicial district that bears its name.

Estepona is a town and municipality in the comarca of the Costa del Sol, southern Spain. It is located in the province of Málaga, part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. Its district covers an area of 137 square kilometers in a fertile valley crossed by small streams and a mountainous areas dominated by the Sierra Bermeja, which reaches an elevation of 1,449 m at the peak of Los Reales.

Manilva is a municipality which lies on the coast at the southwesternmost edge of the province of Málaga on its border with the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia in Spain. It belongs to the comarca of Costa del Sol Occidental.

Casares is a town and municipality in Spain, located in Málaga province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia.

Rincón de la Victoria is a municipality in the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. It is the municipality with the highest well-being in the province of Malaga, according to the Synthetic Indicator of Economic Welfare developed by Andalusian Analysts. According to the same study, Rincón de la Victoria has the highest income per capita in Andalucia.

Nerja is a municipality on the Costa del Sol in the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. It is part of the comarca of La Axarquía. It is on the country's southern Mediterranean coast, about 50 km east of Málaga.

The Penibaetic System is the southernmost of the three systems of mountain ranges of the Baetic System in the southern Iberian Peninsula. It includes the highest point in the peninsula, 3,478 m high Mulhacén in the Sierra Nevada.

The Sierra Alpujata is a mountain range in southern Spain, part of the coastal mountain range that lies behind the Costa del Sol Occidental, in Andalusia. It is situated between the Sierra Blanca and the Sierra de Mijas.

The Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BCE. They were explicitly mentioned as being Celts by several classic authors. These tribes spoke the Celtiberian language and wrote it by adapting the Iberian alphabet, in the form of the Celtiberian script. The numerous inscriptions that have been discovered, some of them extensive, have allowed scholars to classify the Celtiberian language as a Celtic language, one of the Hispano-Celtic languages that were spoken in pre-Roman and early Roman Iberia. Archaeologically, many elements link Celtiberians with Celts in Central Europe, but also show large differences with both the Hallstatt culture and La Tène culture.

Carthage was a settlement in what is now known as modern Tunisia that later became a city-state and then an empire. Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC as one of the largest metropolises in the world and the centre of the Carthaginian Empire, a major power in the ancient world that dominated the western Mediterranean. Following the Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, who later rebuilt the city lavishly.

The Roman Republic was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire, Rome's control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Because of these events, along with the gradual Hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire, historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire.

Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic divisions of Hispania under the Visigoths down to 711. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus under the Arabs in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalusia.

The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and early medieval Germanic languages and are thus equated at least approximately with Germanic-speaking peoples, although different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". The Romans named the area belonging to North-Central Europe in which Germanic peoples lived Germania, stretching East to West between the Vistula and Rhine rivers and north to south from Southern Scandinavia to the upper Danube. In discussions of the Roman period, the Germanic peoples are sometimes referred to as Germani or ancient Germans, although many scholars consider the second term problematic since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. The very concept of "Germanic peoples" has become the subject of controversy among contemporary scholars. Some scholars call for its total abandonment as a modern construct since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity.

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome as it was centred on Constantinople instead of Rome, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

The Caliphate of Córdoba, also known as the Cordoban Caliphate was an Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 929 to 1031. Its territory comprised Iberia and parts of North Africa, with its capital in Córdoba. It succeeded the Emirate of Córdoba upon the self-proclamation of Umayyad emir Abd ar-Rahman III as caliph in January 929. The period was characterized by an expansion of trade and culture, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture.

The Emirate of Granada, also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, was an Islamic realm in southern Iberian Peninsula during the Late Middle Ages. It was the last independent Muslim state in Western Europe.

The Reconquista is the historical term used to describe the military campaigns that Christian kingdoms waged from the 8th century until 1492, in order to retake the Iberian territories which were lost due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga, in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the Arab-Berber forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. Its culmination came in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the united Spanish Crown of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

The Port of Málaga is an international seaport located in the city of Málaga in southern Spain, on the Costa del Sol coast of the Mediterranean. It is the oldest continuously-operated port in Spain and one of the oldest in the Mediterranean.

Puerto José Banús, more commonly known simply as Puerto Banús, is a marina located in the area of Nueva Andalucía, to the southwest of Marbella, Spain on the Costa del Sol. It was built in May 1970 by José Banús, a local property developer, as a luxury marina and shopping complex. It has since become one of the largest entertainment centres in the Costa del Sol, with 5 million annual visitors, and is popular with international celebrities. Developed around a coastal village in the Mediterranean architectural style, Puerto Banús contains high-end shopping malls, restaurants and bars around the marina.

Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to 310 km/h (195 mph). As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE service runs, is the longest HSR network in Europe with 3,762 km (2,338 mi) and the second longest in the world, after China's.

High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines built to handle speeds above 250 km/h (155 mph) or upgraded lines in excess of 200 km/h (124 mph) are widely considered to be high-speed.

Renfe, officially Renfe-Operadora, is the national passenger railway company of Spain.

Córdoba, or sometimes Cordova, is a city in Andalusia, Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. It is the third most populated municipality in Andalusia and the 11th overall in the country.

Pescado frito, also called pescaíto frito, is a traditional dish from the Southern coast of Spain, typically found in Andalusia, but also in Catalonia, Valencia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.

Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versions similar to white table wines, such as Manzanilla and fino, to darker and heavier versions that have been allowed to oxidise as they age in barrel, such as Amontillado and oloroso. Sweet dessert wines are also made from Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel grapes, and are sometimes blended with Palomino-based sherries.

Málaga and Sierras de Málaga are two different Spanish Denominaciones de Origen Protegidas (DOPs) for wines from the province of Málaga. First formed as one DOP in 1932, the Sierras de Málaga DOP was formed in 2001 and is in effect a sub-appellation of Málaga DOP.

A tapa is an appetizer or snack in Spanish cuisine. Tapas can be combined to make a full meal, and can be cold or hot. In some bars and restaurants in Spain and across the globe, tapas have evolved into a very sophisticated cuisine. In some Central American countries, such snacks are known as bocas. In parts of Mexico, similar dishes are called botanas.

Café con leche is a coffee beverage common throughout Spain and Latin America consisting of strong coffee mixed with scalded milk in approximately equal amounts. The amount of milk can be higher in a café con leche en vaso or a café con leche de desayuno. Sugar or sweetener is added to taste. It is similar to the Italian caffè latte and the French café au lait.