Built or owned by Spanish
Sites outside the current borders of Spain that were built or owned by Spanish persons.
Connected Sites
| Site | Rationale | Link |
| Antigua Guatemala | on March 10, 1543 the Spanish conquistadors founded present-day Antigua (wiki) | |
| Arequipa | Arequipa was founded on 15 August 1540 by Garci Manuel de Carbajal (wiki) | |
| Baroque Churches | Paoay: Building of the present church was started in 1694 by Augustinian friar Father Antonio Estavillo, completed in 1710 and rededicated in 1896 (wiki) | |
| Camagüey | One of the first seven villages founded by the Spaniards in Cuba (AB ev) | |
| Camino Real | The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro developed to serve the great mining initiatives in northern Mexico during the Spanish colonial period (AB ev) | |
| Campeche | Founded in 1540 by Francisco Montejo, a Spanish conquistador in Mexico and Central America (wiki) | |
| Cartagena | Cartagena was founded on June 1, 1533 by Spanish commander Pedro de Heredia, in the former location of the indigenous Caribbean Calamarí village (wiki) | |
| Cienfuegos | The city was founded on April 22, 1819 by French and Spanish settlers under the command of Don Luis De Clouet y Favrot (wiki) | |
| City of Luxembourg | The Spaniards conquered the fortress in 1555. "As time passed, the fortifications needed to be adapted to new methods of war based on increasingly strong firepower. During the 1640s under the Spaniards, the Swiss engineer Isaac von Treybach significantly reworked the defences. The Bock was also strengthened with three forts, the Large Bock, Middle Bock and Small Bock (from west to east), separated from each other by cuts in the rock and linked by bridges. As a result, little remained of the medieval castle." | |
| Colonia del Sacramento | The current building of the Basilica del Santisimo Sacramento was erected under Spanish rule: The present temple dates back to 1810, when it was built according to plans by Tomás Toribio (wiki) | |
| Coro and its Port | The city was founded on July 26 of 1527 by Juan Martín de Ampíes (wiki) | |
| Cuzco | The first Spaniards arrived in the city on 15 November 1533. Francisco Pizarro officially arrived in Cusco on 23 March 1534, renaming it the "Very noble and great city of Cuzco". The many buildings constructed after the Spanish invasion have a mixture of Spanish influence with Inca indigenous architecture, including the Santa Clara and San Blas neighborhoods. The Spanish destroyed many Inca buildings, temples and palaces. They used the remaining walls as bases for the construction of a new city. (wiki) | |
| Guanajuato | The Spanish found deposits of gold here in the 1540s and soon they sent soldiers and built forts. In 1548, the outpost [was] formally established with the name of Real de Minas de Guanajuato by viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza (wiki) | |
| Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba | The town of Córdoba had been established by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera in 1573 and laid out on the standard Spanish colonial checkerboard pattern. In common with the other orders, the Jesuits were allocated one of the seventy blocks of the original city, but they did not take possession of it until 1599. (AB ev) | |
| Kasbah of Algiers | Because of the piracy activity that developed in Algiers, Ferdinand of Aragon, on the heels of the Reconquista, pushed to take and fortify the islet in front of Algiers (the Peñon) to neutralize the city. The Barbarossa brothers drove the Spaniards out of the islet for good in 1529. (French Wiki) | |
| La Fortaleza and San Juan | San Juan, as a settlement of the Spanish Empire, was used by merchant and military ships traveling from Spain as the first stopover in the Americas (wiki) | |
| Lima | On November 3, 1536, the Spanish Crown confirmed the founding ... Lima's first university, Saint Mark University was established in 1551 and its first printing press in 1584. (wiki) | |
| Medina of Tétouan | the arrivai of the Moriscos (Spanish Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity and later expelled from Spain) from 1609 onwards led to a further expansion of the medina towards the north-west (Rabat al-Aala) (AB ev) | |
| Mexico City and Xochimilco | Hernán Cortés realized the strategic and symbolic importance of the Aztec capital and founded the Spanish capital of Mexico City on the site, and in particular rebuilt the Aztec ceremonial and political center as the main square, the Plaza Mayor, usually called the Zócalo. (wiki) | |
| Morelia | What would become the city of Morelia was founded by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and a number of encomenderos in 1541, who first named it Nueva Ciudad de Mechuacan (wiki) | |
| Naples | The palace is on the site of an earlier residence, which had housed the former viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca. Construction on the present building was begun in the 17th century by the architect Domenico Fontana.[1] Intended to house the King Philip III of Spain on a visit never fulfilled to this part of his kingdom, instead it initially housed the Viceroy Fernando Ruiz de Castro, earl of Lemos. (Wiki) | |
| Oaxaca and Monte Alban | The city of Oaxaca de Juarez, initially named Antequera, was founded in 1529 ... It is an example of sixteenth XVI century colonial city and of town planning (AB ev) | |
| Old Havana | Havana was the sixth town founded by the Spanish on the island, called San Cristóbal de la Habana by Pánfilo de Narváez (wiki) | |
| Panamá | Panama Viejo: A settlement was founded on 15 August 1519 by Pedro Arias D'Avila and other 100 inhabitants. At the time, it was the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific Ocean, replacing the two cities of Santa María la Antigua del Darién and Acla. (wiki) | |
| Portobelo-San Lorenzo | Portobelo was founded in 1597 by Spanish explorer Francisco Velarde y Mercado (wiki) | |
| Potosi | Potosí became an 'Imperial City' following the visit of Francisco de Toledo in 1572. It and its region prospered enormously following the discovery of the New World's biggest silver lodes in the Cerro de Potosí south of the city. The major colonial-era supplier of silver for Spain, Potosí was directly and tangibly associated with the massive import of precious metals to Seville (AB ev) | |
| Puebla | The city was founded in 1531 the Valley of Cuetlaxcoapan as a Spanish city, not on the foundation of an existing indigenous city-state (wiki) | |
| Quebrada de Humahuaca | Posta de Hornillos, created by the colonial rulers in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata | |
| Querétaro | The foundation date of Querétaro is pegged to 25 July 1531, which is when Spaniard Hernán Pérez Bocanegra y Córdoba arrived with the allied Otomi leader Conín (wiki) | |
| Quito | The city was ... refounded on 6 December 1534 by 204 settlers led by Sebastián de Benalcázar (wiki) | |
| Ruins of León Viejo | León Viejo was founded on June 15, 1524 by the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (wiki) | |
| San Antonio Missions | Founded by Spanish missionaries | |
| San Miguel de Allende | The village was officially re-established in 1555 by Juan de San Miguel's successor, Bernardo Cossin and indigenous leader Fernando de Tapia. It was refounded both as a mission and as a military outpost (wiki) | |
| San Pedro de la Roca Castle | It was designed in 1637 by Giovanni Battista Antonelli on behalf of Pedro de la Roca de Borja, a Spanish noble and the colonial governor of Santiago de Cuba from 1637 to 1640 | |
| Santa Ana de los Rios de Cuenca | The Spanish settlement of Cuenca was founded on April 12, 1557 by the explorer Gil Ramírez Dávalos. Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, then Viceroy of Peru had commissioned the founding and ordered the city named after his home town of Cuenca, Spain (wiki) | |
| Santa Cruz de Mompox | The city was founded on May 3, 1537 by Don Alonso de Heredia as a safe port on the Magdalena. (wiki) | |
| Santo Domingo | Dating from 1496, when the Spanish settled there, and officially from 5 August 1498, Santo Domingo is the oldest European city in the Americas. Bartholomew Columbus founded the settlement (wiki) | |
| Sucre | On November 30, 1538, Sucre was founded under the name Ciudad de la Plata de la Nueva Toledo (City of Silver of New Toledo) by Pedro Anzures, Marquís de Campo Redondo. (wiki) | |
| Syracuse | he era of Charles V was marked by the war against the Ottoman Empire. Syracuse, as a borderland between the western and eastern Mediterranean, became a fundamental pivot for defending the Spanish imperial borders. Charles V, therefore, had it fortified in such a powerful manner that it assumed, from that moment on, the nickname of fortress. The transformation of Ortigia into an island also dates back to the work of the Spanish soldiers of Charles V, since they cut the isthmus that the Greeks had built about a thousand years earlier, thus returning Ortigia to its original geographical shape. | |
| São Francisco Square | "Since the town of São Cristóvão was founded during the period when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same Crown, Spanish codes for urban patterns were employed, especially the use of a regular grid" (AB ev) | |
| Tlacotalpan | In 1518, Pedro de Alvarado led an expedition sailing up the Papaloapan area and in 1521, Hernán Cortés sent Gonzalo de Sandoval here to search for gold. After the Conquest in 1521, Alfonso Romero received the area as an encomienda. (wiki) | |
| Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios | Trinidad was founded on December 23, 1514 by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (wiki) | |
| Vigan | In 1574, [Juan de] Salcedo returned to the capital of his encomienda (trusteeship), Vigan, bringing with him his soldiers and some Augustinian missionaries to pioneer the evangelization of the Ilocos region. He established a Spanish city for the purpose of controlling the neighboring country. (wiki) | |
| Zacatecas | The Zacatecos initially fought the permanent presence of the Spanish, but the mining potential of the area strengthened the Europeans' resolve and the natives were defeated in the 1540s (wiki) |
Suggestions?
Do you know of another WHS we could connect to Built or owned by Spanish?
A connection should:
- Not be "self evident"
- Link at least 3 different sites
- Not duplicate or merely subdivide the "Category" assignment already identified on this site.
- Add some knowledge or insight (whether significant or trivial!) about WHS for the users of this site
- Be explained, with reference to a source