42°52N 8°37W, pop (2000e) 106 000. City in La Coruña province, Galicia, NW Spain, on R Sar; former capital of the Kingdom of Galicia; world-famous place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages (shrine of St James); airport; railway; university (1501); the old town is a world heritage site; linen, paper, soap, brandy, silverwork; cathedral (11th12th-c); Fiesta of Santiago Apostol (Jul).
Santiago de Compostela (also Saint James of Compostela) is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia. The city's cathedral is the destination of the important medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St James (in Spanish the Camino de Santiago), which is still walked today.
The city
The cathedral fronts on the main Plaza of the old and well-preserved city. Across the square is the Pazo de Raxoi (Raxoi's Palace), the town hall and seat of the Galician Xunta, and on the right from the cathedral steps is the Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos, founded in 1492 by the Catholic Kings, Isabela and Fernando, as a pilgrim's hospice (now a parador). The Obradoiro façade of the cathedral, the best known, is depicted on the Spanish euro coins of 1 cent, 2 cents, and 5 cents (€0.01, €0.02, and €0.05).
Santiago also has a fine University which can be seen best from an alcove in the large municipal park in the centre of the city.
Santiago gives its name to one of the four military orders of Spain: Compostela, Calatrava, Alcantara and Montesa.
The prevailing wind from the Atlantic and the surrounding mountains combine to give Santiago some of Europe's highest rainfall: about 66 inches annually.
The etymology of the name Compostela
The popular etymology of the name "Compostela" holds that it comes from Latin campus stellae, i.e. "field of the star", making Santiago de Compostela "St. James in the Field of the Star". These bones were then buried where a shepherd had spotted a star and a church was eventually built over the bones and later replaced with the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela.
Another etymology is Compositum, i.e.
Yet another etymology derives it from "San Jacome Apostol".
Demography
Demographic evolution of Santiago de Compostela between 1900 and 2005| 1900 | 1930 | 1950 | 1981 | 2005 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24,120 | 38,270 | 55,553 | 82,404 | 92,919 |
History of the shrine and the pilgrimage
The burial place of St. James
"Santiago" ("Sant Iago") means "St. James", and the city is supposedly the final resting place of the Apostle Saint James the Great, the brother of John.
The legend that St James found his way to the Iberian peninsula, and had preached there is one of a number of early traditions concerning the missionary activities and final resting places of the apostles of Jesus. The Cathedral authorities at Compostela remain uncommitted as to whether the relics are those of Saint James the Great, while continuing to promote the more general benefits of pilgrimage to the site.
According to a tradition that cannot be traced before the 12th century, the relics were said to have been discovered in 835 by Theodomir, bishop of Iria Flavia in the far northwest of the principality of Asturias.
The establishment of the shrine
As suggested already, it is probably impossible to know whose bones were actually found, and precisely when and how.
The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
Main article: Way of St. James.The 1000 year old pilgrimage to the shrine of St James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is known in English as the Way of St. James and in Spanish as the Camino de Santiago.
Pre-Christian legends
As the lowest-lying land on that stretch of coast, the city's site took on added significance.
The cathedral
Main article: Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.At the front of the Baroque facade of the original Romanesque cathedral, a golden mollusc shell adorns the altar. Perhaps the chief beauty of the cathedral, however, is the 12th-century Portico de la Gloria, behind the Late Baroque facade. The cathedral's facade gains from forming part of an extended architectural composition on the Plaza del Obradoiro, a grand square surrounded by public buildings.
In the cathedral's Capilla del Relicario ("Chapel of the Reliquary") is a gold crucifix, dated 874, reportedly containing a piece of the True Cross.
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