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Reus
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Reus is the capital of the comarca of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain.
The area has always been an important producer of wines and spirits, and gained continental importance at the time of the Phylloxera plague.
Name
The origin of the name is source of discussion. One of the theories is that Reus comes from the latin word used to describe prisoners, and as such, it would be a roman penitentiary.
Discussion
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Encyclopedia
Reus is the capital of the comarca of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain.
The area has always been an important producer of wines and spirits, and gained continental importance at the time of the Phylloxera plague.
Name
The origin of the name is source of discussion. One of the theories is that Reus comes from the latin word used to describe prisoners, and as such, it would be a roman penitentiary. Currently, the most accepted theory is that the name has celtic roots, from the root red that originated the name redis (or reddis), that would approximately mean place in the way / place in the roads, or said alternatively, an inhabited place in a cross-road.
Demography
Reus was for long the second city of Catalonia with a population of 14,440 in 1787 and 27,257 in 1860. It was overtaken by Tarragona and Lleida between 1900 and 1930. For example, the population barely raised between 1920 and 1930, with 30.266 and 35.950 habitants, respectively. From then, the population growth has been notable, from the 41.014 habitants in 1960 to the 108.100 habitants that the city has as of the end of 2008. Emigration, mostly from Marrakech, has made that population grow, from which about 6% are muslim and 8% from other foreign religions.
According to the 2006 official Spanish census (source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística), Reus is the 9th most populated city in Catalonia and the 59th in Spain.
Commerce
The city can be considered as a big commercial mall. There're small shop everywhere, but the most commercial streets are Llovera, Monterols, Sant Joan, Galanes, de Jesús and del Vent. Nearing July 25th (local festivity of Sant Jaume) a fair is celebrated, in the past dedicated exclusively to cattle, but nowadays with a wider range of sectors offering products. On Mondays and Saturdays, street market is held near the Mercat Central, recently improved. The nut guild on the General Prim square, located on a building property of La Caixa d'Estalvis de Tarragona, was closed on 2004.
Festivities
The principal Reus festivity is Sant Pere on June 29th, declared of National Touristic Interest. Also, on September 25th, the Mare de Déu de la Misericòrdia is held. One of the most characteristic and popular acts of these festivities is the so called tronada, which is a series of 29 little mortars masclets with bigger and stronger bangers interleaved, arranged in a linearly around the Mercadal square (where the city hall is located), united by a hand craft gunpowder line. This lines ends in a square shape in front of the city hall, with more bangers and 4 masclets more.
Other noteworthy festivities are the Carnival and the Anada a l'Antiga towards Salou. Most of the neighborhoods have they own festivities.
Besides the major festivities, Reus holds many festivals, for example Cos, a festival dedicated to mime, or El Trapezi, a festival with circus spectacles.
Tourism in Reus
In recent years tourism in Reus has expanded as more and more people flock to the Costa Daurada for their summer holidays or some winter sun.
Recently Reus Airport has started to receive low cost flights from Ryanair who fly to Reus from eighteen different European locations. From Reus Airport you can easily reach both the resort town of Salou and one of Europe's biggest theme parks at Port Aventura.
Flag of Reus
The first flag of Reus was in use from 1774 to 1943. The flag was dark red with the city arms in the centre.
In 1943 the flag was changed because the color red seemed to be associated with the left, defeated in the civil war (1936-39). As the historic city arms were argent with a heraldic rose the new flag was white with a heraldic rose in the center. Minor changes to the rose in the flag were made after 1943.
Currently the rose has a new version, taken from the city emblem. The emblem itself has official status. This presumably also applies to the flag also but this has not been confirmed by the local government.
History
In 1852 the architect Antoni Gaudí was born in Reus.
On July 20 1996, a bomb planted by ETA at Reus airport injured 53 people, many of them British . Further bombs exploded at Cambrils and Salou.
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