Salobreña

Salobreña sits on a rocky outcrop that was once a true island, surrounded by a bay. Over centuries, sediment carried down by the Guadalfeo river filled that bay and created the fertile plain visible today. The earliest stable settlements date from around the third millennium BC, with people farming and raising livestock on the area's higher ground. Phoenicians arrived on this stretch of coast, calling it Sel or Selambina, and later it fell under Punic influence through Gadir, modern Cádiz. A Punic sanctuary was cut into the rock and later converted into a fish-salting works. Roman rural settlements have been identified at several sites around the area, though the precise location of the Roman town remains uncertain.

The Muslim period ended in 1489 when Francisco Ramírez de Madrid took Salobreña for the Catholic Monarchs, who appointed him castle governor as reward. A Morisco uprising in 1569 brought military intervention, and unlike most of the surrounding territory, the land here was sold by the Crown rather than redistributed. Sugar cane became the dominant crop, driving deforestation and further shaping the landscape. The industry revived strongly in the nineteenth century using techniques brought from Cuba, and the sugar factory Nuestra Señora del Rosario opened at Caleta-La Guardia from 1861.

The castle, the historic centre, the town walls, and the Torre del Cambrón all hold the highest level of Spanish heritage protection. The old Nuestra Señora del Rosario sugar factory was listed for its ethnographic interest in 2007, and the Casa Roja, a manor house that belonged to the now-demolished San Francisco sugar works, also survives. Parish church Nuestra Señora del Rosario, the chapels of San Luis and San Juan Bautista, and the La Santa Cruz chapel in the La Loma neighbourhood are the main religious buildings.

The town also has a municipal archaeology museum and several viewpoint promenades.