Cartagena

Cartagena lies in a natural harbour on the Mediterranean coast of south-eastern Spain, in the Region of Murcia, and with 219,235 people as of 2024 is the region’s second most populous municipality; the wider Campo de Cartagena holds 409,586. It was founded around 227 BC by the Barcids of Ancient Carthage as Qart-Hadast, and was later Carthago Nova under Roman rule. The harbour explains the whole city, and the Roman theatre uncovered beneath the modern centre is the most striking of what that history left behind.