Gandia
Encyclopedia
Gandia is a city and municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in the Valencian Community
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...

, Eastern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 on the Mediterranean. Gandia is located on the Costa del Azahar
Costa del Azahar
Costa del Azahar or Costa dels Tarongers is the name for the coast of the province of Castellón in Spain, from Vinaròs to Almenara.Towns on the Costa del Azahar include Peníscola, Benicàssim and Castelló de la Plana....

, 65 km south of Valencia and 96 km north of Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...

.

It was an important cultural and commercial centre during the 15th and 16th centuries: in the 15th it had a university. It was home to several important poets including Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March was a Valencian poet who was born in Gandia towards the end of the 14th century. He was the son of Pere March, nephew of Jaume March II, and cousin of Arnau March....

, and produced the novelist Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell was a Valencian knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, which is written in Valencian...

, but it is perhaps best known for the Borgia
Borgia
The Borgias, also known as the Borjas, Borjia, were a European Papal family of Italian and Spanish origin with the name stemming from the familial fief seat of Borja belonging to their Aragonese Lords; they became prominent during the Renaissance. The Borgias were patrons of the arts, and their...

s, through their family title, Duke of Gandia
Duke of Gandia
The hereditary Spanish title duke of Gandía was created in 1485 by Ferdinand II of Aragon from the original Italian title "duke of Candia" belonging to the Italian Stato di Mare or Italian Kingdoms of the Mediterranean Sea; originally granted around 1206 to a Genoan marquis member of the House of...

.

Today, Gandia is one of the largest coastal towns, with a population over 80,000, and a thriving centre of commerce and tourism in the region. There are two main zones, Gandia City, which has all the historical monuments, commercial activity, and shopping, and Gandia beach, where apartments and summer residences used during the summer season are to be found. The bars and nightclubs are concentrated in the beach area. As is normal for Spain, nightlife does not begin until well after midnight. The beach and town are actually some 2 km apart which succeeds in separating summer tourism from day-to-day living.

Tourism

With its long, wide, golden, sandy beaches Gandia is one of the major tourist destinations in Spain. Traditionally Gandia's tourism has a domestic base, with the majority coming from Madrid, although in recent years it has been an increasingly popular destination for international tourists, mainly French, German and British.

For culture, there are literary contests, the Summer University (Universitat d'Estiu), the International Festival of Classical Music and art exhibitions; sports include water, golf, tennis and hiking.

There are some popular Spanish restaurants around the beach.

Gandia has a number of shopping facilities including shopping malls and chain supermarkets like Carrefour
Carrefour
Carrefour S.A. is an international hypermarket chain headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world...

 and Aldi
ALDI
ALDI Einkauf GmbH & Co. oHG, doing business as ', short for "Albrecht Discount", is a discount supermarket chain based in Germany...

.

Sports

Gandia, and the whole Safor
Safor
Safor is a comarca within the province of Valencia, Spain. The capital is the city of Gandia, but also includes the towns of Oliva, Piles and Daimús, among others...

 comarca
Comarca
A comarca is a traditional region or local administrative division found in parts of Spain, Portugal, Panama, Nicaragua, and Brazil. The term is derived from the term marca, meaning a "march, mark", plus the prefix co- meaning "together, jointly".The comarca is known in Aragonese as redolada and...

, is said to be the centre of the Raspall
Raspall
Raspall is a variant of the handball game, Valencian pilota, played mainly in the Valencian regions south to the Xúquer river: the Vall d'Albaida, the Safor, the Costera, the Marina Alta and the Marina Baixa. It is also popular in the Ribera Baixa...

 variant of the Valencian pilota
Valencian pilota
Valencian pilota is a traditional handball sport played in the Valencian Community. Its origins are not known, but seems to be related to the French Jeu de paume....

 autochthonous sport. Nonetheless, Gandia held the Trinquet
Valencian trinquet
Valencian trinquet, or simply trinquet , is the court used in the Valencian Community for two different modalities of Valencian pilota: the Escala i corda and the Raspall.- Court :...

 El Zurdo
courtfield (it was demolished in 2007 to build an apartment block).

Politics

In 2011, Arturo Torró Chisvert of the People's Party
People's Party (Spain)
The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...

 became the mayor of Gandia. He replaced José Manuel Orengo of the (PSPV-PSOE) who had been Mayor since 2009.
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