Igualada

Igualada appears in records as early as 1003, noted as a small settlement with a church dedicated to Santa María, linked to the monastery of Sant Cugat. It sat at a crossroads of feudal territories — the domains of Ódena, Montbui and Claramunt — and was crossed by the ancient road between Barcelona and Lleida.

The town's first known walls probably date from the medieval period and were later extended to take in the western buildings of the Raval de Capdevila district. A third expansion followed, bringing the circuit to 36 towers and 10 gateways. Those walls stood until the modern era.

By the end of the same century, two new quarters had grown up outside the walls — San Agustín and La Soledad — and new tanneries were built in the same period. In 1925 the town bought land from neighbouring Ódena to expand its municipal boundary.

During the Franco era, waves of migrants from other parts of Spain prompted the construction of new working-class districts: Fátima, Santo Cristo and Montserrat. In 1984 a major urban improvement plan called Les Comes was approved, opening up a residential zone to the north of the city, extended in 1988. More recently, the city has spread westward with the residential developments of Sant Jaume Sesoliveres and El Pla de la Massa.

On 7 November 2004, Igualada hosted the first civil welcoming ceremony — a secular equivalent of a baptism — ever held in Spain.

The basilica of Santa María, also known as the Iglesia Grande, is the most significant historic monument in the city. The current building dates essentially from the early modern period and reflects several phases of construction in its mix of architectural styles. The floor plan is a single nave flanked on both sides by twelve chapels, and the bell tower was added in a later century. A notable organ built in 1759 by Antoni Bosca, and restored in 1914 by Miquel Bertran, survived the Civil War intact — the only element of the church not destroyed. Igualada hosts an international organ festival each year and is one of the few places in Catalonia where organ studies are formally taught.

Founded in 1954, the Museu de la Pell (Leather Museum) was the first of its kind on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the first three in Europe. Since 1996 it has been a section of the Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya. Its collections are spread across two historic buildings: Cal Boyer, a late nineteenth-century cotton textile factory with cast-iron columns and wooden lattice screens, and Cal Granotes, one of the oldest tanneries in Europe, which still shows the traditional two-floor tannery layout and demonstrates pre-industrial vegetable tanning methods.

The city's main promenade, at around 1.5 km, is claimed to be the longest straight boulevard in Spain. Tree-lined with plane trees on both sides, it forms a shaded walkway and includes buildings with Modernista details from the early twentieth century.

The park-cemetery designed by architects Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós has won several architecture prizes. Miralles died in 2000 and was buried there at his own request. Its tilted niches, concrete tunnels, stone and grass create an unusual and contemplative space.

The Railhome BCN museum, opened in 2014, covers railway modelling and culture across more than 500 m².

Igualada is accessible by road from several directions. The A-2 motorway connects it to Lleida and Barcelona. The C-37 road links it north to Manresa and south to Valls in Tarragona province.

The C-15 connects it to the AP-7 motorway toward France, and south to Vilafranca del Penedès and Vilanova i la Geltrú.