History and Timeline of Rincon de la Victoria

The municipal territory of Rincon de la Victoria is bordered by the Totalan stream on the west and by that of San Millan on the east, and there are two other streams, the Granadillas and Benagalbon; all of these have only seasonal flow. Moving inland from the coastal strip, there are numerous elongated hills on which olive, almond, and carob trees and vineyards predominate in a landscape that is typical of La Axarquia but without great elevations, the highest peak being the Salazar hill at 512 metres.
 
This municipality is made up of several population centres: Benagalbon, five kilometres into the interior; La Cala; Torre de Benagalbon; Aguirre; Los Millares and several others with less population. In the last 20 years, practically all of these communities, especially Rincon de la Victoria and La Cala, have experienced spectacular growth due mainly to their proximity to the city of Malaga and to improvements in their transportation links. What were originally second homes for many residents of the capital have thus become their main residences.
 
This does not make Rincon de la Victoria just an extension of Malaga, although its proximity is an advantage. It has a life of its own and also very dynamic tourism and commerce.
 
This was one of the first territories in the province of Malaga to be settled by humans, at least judging by the data that is available to date, and is one of the best documented in La Axarquia due to the Paleolithic paintings and fossil remains that have been found at the El Tesoro cave and the no less interesting Bronze Age relics found at the La Victoria cave.
 
It is known that around the year 550 B. C. a Punic-Phoenician settlement was established on the Loma de Benagalbon (Hill of Benagalbon), and later the Romans also established themselves in this area as is shown by the mosaics and ruins of bathhouses discovered here. This tends to corroborate the description of the historian Pliny in the first century, who took note of the existence of a fortress built as a defence against possible invasions from the sea. It is more than probable that around this fortress the Arabs founded what is today Rincon de la Victoria and called it Bezmiliana, which would have been the name given to it by the Romans with some variation by the Arabs.
 
According to the description of the eleventh century Muslim El Idrissi, ancient Bezmiliana (Bizilyana), of which practically nothing remains today, had a fishing port, a medina (central village district), a mosque and a wall protecting the town. The scant remains of the town are still visible in the area known as El Castellon, on the Benagalbon road.
 
According to some Christian accounts, it seems that the inhabitants of these districts abandoned the place ahead of the advancing Christian troops, since when they were en route to Malaga from Velez Malaga they found the village depopulated. Towards the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth, some 120 persons arrived in this area with the objective of repopulating it, but these new villagers also abandoned the area even before the Moorish rebellion of 1569. According to some historians, this was due to a plague epidemic, to which might be added the bad relations with the Moorish population, constantly more oppressed by the Christians, and the continual invasions from the sea.
 
Construction was begun in 1776 near the ruins of Bezmiliana on the Bezmiliana fortress or castle that was intended to defend this entire section of the coast, in this case from the English. Under the shelter of this huge project small structures began to spring up that would shortly form a population centre, whose inhabitants devoted themselves to fishing. It would be considered a sub-district of Benagalbon, the community that would continue to be the municipality’s nucleus of population until 1906 when the population of Rincon de la Victoria was much greater than that of Benagalbon. Nevertheless, it was not until 1950 that the Town Hall was officially located in Rincon de la Victoria. The origin of the name is that the territory occupied by the village belonged to the La Victoria convent.

Tourist Information

Town Hall, Plaza Al-Andalus, 1, 29730
   Telephone: 952 402 300
   Fax: 952 402 900