Murcia · Sierra Minera
A town created by a nineteenth-century mining boom, half-emptied when the mines closed, and kept in the national eye by the flamenco festival that grew out of the songs of the Sierra.
Made by mining, saved by song
La Unión was formed in 1860 by joining El Garbanzal and Herrerías, and took its present name in 1868. Lead, silver and zinc from the Sierra Minera drew tens of thousands of workers and paid for a centre of modernista buildings.
The mines closed in 1991. The Antiguo Mercado Público of 1907, the open-air mining park on the hills and the Festival Internacional del Cante de las Minas, first held in 1961, now carry the town's identity.
Fast facts
INE padrón, 1 Jan 2025
19,572 in 2015
Read La Unión
How two thousand years of mining in the Sierra Minera, the 1907 Antiguo Mercado, the filling of Portmán bay and the Cante de las Minas made and remade La Unión.
Published 1 September 2026
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