Pamplona

The running (encierro) of the bulls during the Fiesta de San Fermín, Pamplona, Spain.

Pamplona, capital of both the provincia (province) and the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Navarra, northeastern Spain. It lies on the western bank of the Arga River in the fertile La Cuenca region. Situated in an irrigated cereal-producing area, Pamplona is a flourishing agricultural centre. According to tradition, it was founded in 75 bce by Julius Caesar’s rival Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) as a military settlement during his campaign against Quintus Sertorius, leader of a revolt against Rome. The city’s first name was Pompeiopolis or Pompaelo (corrupted by the Moors to Banbalūnah). It was almost derelict after Moorish and Frankish invasions and the final dismantling of its defenses by the Frankish king Charlemagne in 778. Pamplona was made capital of the kingdom of Navarre by Sancho III of Navarre (1000–35), and his new foundation was known as the Ciudad de la Navarrería. In 1512 the armies of King Ferdinand of Aragon-Castile entered Pamplona, and the portion of Navarre south of the Pyrenees was incorporated into Spain. The citadel built by Philip II of Spain in 1571 made Pamplona the most strongly fortified town of the north. After the First Carlist War (1833–39), Pamplona ceased (1841) to be the capital of the Navarre kingdom but became capital of the new Navarra province.

The medieval core of the town, La Navarrería, is dominated by the cathedral, mostly 14th- to 15th-century French Gothic but with Romanesque remnants and a Neoclassical facade. Notable too is the Gothic church (13th–14th century) in the old district of San Saturnino, or Cernín (tradition holds that San Saturnino evangelized the city). Other important buildings include the House of Accounts (royal treasury, c. 1364); the Consistory (1741, with Baroque facade); and the Provincial Deputation (Neoclassical) with the General Archive of Navarra adjoining. The centre of the city, linking old with new, is the porticoed Plaza del Castillo. Pamplona has various museums and institutions of higher education. The private University of Navarra was established at Pamplona in 1952.

The city’s chief tourist attraction is the Fiesta de San Fermín (honouring St. Fermin, its first bishop), described in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises (1926). Starting on July 6, the eve of the saint’s festival, the fiesta lasts until the 14th, with daily bullfights preceded each morning by the famous encierro—“enclosing”—or, more commonly, “running” of the bulls, when they are driven through the streets behind crowds of skillfully dodging men and boys.

Pamplona underwent several city extensions in the second half of the 20th century, its greatest period of demographic, industrial, and economic growth. The city’s walls were knocked down and wide streets were built. Population growth extended out to boroughs that were previously built outside the city walls, and new boroughs also began to form. By the 1970s these outlying boroughs were consolidated into the city. Municipalities of the river basin also expanded.

The city’s ancient crafts of wineskin, sandal, rope, and pottery making coexist with the manufacture of metal, kitchenware, liquor, paper, and chemicals and the milling of flour and sugar. Industrialization has produced a suburban belt of factories and workers’ dwellings. Besides its regional industrial significance, Pamplona also is an important centre for communication between Spain and France. Pop. (2006 est.) 195,769.