Welcome to Cartagena!

Cartagena is a city in the province and autonomous community of Murcia, Spain.

The city was, if not the first, the main gateway for the Carthaginians to the Iberian Peninsula, founded in 227 BC, by the Carthaginian general Asdrúbal the Beautiful, with the name of Qart Hadasht.

The Carthaginian presence in it was short-lived, as in 209 BC, 18 years after its foundation, during the Second Punic War, the city was conquered by the Romans.

Under Roman rule, the city experienced its greatest moments of splendor between the end of the third century BC and the beginning of the second century AD. In the year 44 BC, the city received the title of colony, with the name of Colonia Urbs Iulia Nova Carthago. The importance of the city was based, together with the mining wealth of its mountains, on its privileged location and on the uniqueness of its topography - a small peninsula between the sea and an interior lagoon (the Almarjal of modern times) - which allowed for easy defence.

With the end of the Roman Empire, a period of decadence opens, of which there is very little news.

In the year 734, it would fall under Muslim power, undertaking then, and especially between the 10th and 12th centuries, a process of slow recovery, which is translated by its quotation in the works of Arab writers.

It was in 1245 when then Prince Alfonso - who would later become Alfonso 10 El Sabio - conquered the city, which would regain its status as an episcopal seat.

                          

Cartagena will regain its former importance in the 18th century when in 1726 it became the capital of the Maritime Department of the Mediterranean and the construction of the Arsenal and the castles and barracks foreseen in the plan for the fortification of the city, a large and mercantile activity that will attract large contingents to it. population, passing in a short time from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants.