Alicante

As a royal town of the Kingdom of Valencia, Alicante kept its own privileges and a vote in the Valencian Cortes, but it stayed a border town in the long quarrels between Aragon and Castile, and in 1386 raiders from Granada struck it. Its walled harbor, safe from corsairs, gave it an edge over Valencia itself, and once Cartagena declined, the wool of Castile was shipped out through Alicante as well; by the 17th century it was the busiest port of the Valencian lands, outranked on the peninsula only by Seville and Cádiz. That wealth drew fire. A French fleet under Jean d'Estrées all but destroyed the city in 1691, and in the War of the Spanish Succession bombardments levelled two thirds of it and wrecked the walls and the castle of Santa Bàrbara. Alicante rebuilt on wine and shipping, and in 1833 it was made capital of its own province, ahead of Orihuela, which had led the region for centuries.