Costa del Sol

The Costa del Sol (literally "Coast of the Sun" or "Sun Coast") is a region in the south of Spain in the autonomous community of Andalusia, comprising the coastal towns and communities along the coastline of the Province of Málaga and the eastern part of Campo de Gibraltar in Cádiz. Formerly made up only of a series of small fishing settlements, today the region is a world-renowned tourist destination. The Costa del Sol is situated between two lesser known coastal regions, the Costa de la Luz and the Costa Tropical. The region has no official limit, but it is generally accepted that the Costa del Sol stretches from the municipality of La Línea de la Concepción in the west to Nerja in the east, spanning around 150 kilometers of coastline. The term Costa del Sol was coined at the beginning of the 20th century by Rodolfo Lussnigg to promote the Almería coastline. Until the late 1960s, it was used in reference to the entire Mediterranean coast of Eastern Andalusia. The name refers to the sunny climate, present in the region most days of the year. The Costa del Sol is one of the most important tourist areas in Spain; around 35% of Andalusia's tourism is concentrated in the region; in 2009 it had 17 million overnight stays. The region was a relatively prosperous commercial and industrial center for much of the 19th century. The tourist boom in the area began in the 1920s with the opening of the Baños del Carmen in Málaga and a golf course in Torremolinos. It became an international tourist destination in the 1950s and is today particularly popular among British, German, Scandinavian and French tourists. The most populated city on the Costa del Sol is the city of Málaga, with a metropolitan population of close to one million. Málaga is home to the Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport, which is the third busiest airport in mainland Spain, behind Barajas (Madrid) and El Prat (Barcelona). The A-7 highway runs through the region, as does the old national highway generally known as N-340.