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San Sebastián or Donostia  is a coastal city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It is the largest city in the province of Gipuzkoa and the third largest in the Basque Country as a whole, after Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz, with a population of 186,095 as of 2015. The San Sebastián metropolitan area reached 436,500 in 2010, making it the 18th most populous metropolitan area of Spain. San Sebastián is also the largest urban area of the Basque Eurocity Bayonne-San Sebastián.

The main economic activities are commerce and tourism, and it is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Spain. Despite the city's small size, events such as the San Sebastián International Film Festival have given it an international dimension. San Sebastián, along with Wrocław, Poland, was the European Capital of Culture in 2016.

Etymology
In spite of appearances, both the Basque form Donostia and the Spanish form San Sebastián have the same meaning of Saint Sebastian. The dona/done/doni element in Basque place-names signifies "saint" and is derived from Latin domine; the second part of Donostia contains a shortened form of the saint's name. There are two hypotheses regarding the evolution of the Basque name: according to one it evolved as *Done Sebastiáne > Donasa(b)astiai > Donasastia > Donastia > Donostia, the other one says it was *Done Sebastiane > *Done Sebastiae > *Done Sebastie > *Donesebastia > *Donasastia > *Donastia > Donostia.

Demonym
The most common used demonym used by locals to refer to themselves is donostiarra (singular) and donostiarrak (plural), both in Basque and Spanish. The historical Spanish demonym for the city's inhabitants was easonense, derived from Easo, the Spanish name for Oiasso, a Basque-Roman settlement which was incorrectly believed to have been located in present-day San Sebastián. Archeological evidence however points to the city location being around the old quarter of the neighbouring Irun. The term thus, has fallen out of use.

Pre-history
The first evidence of human stationary presence in the current city is the settlement of Ametzagaña, between South Intxaurrondo and Astigarraga. The unearthed remains, such as carved stone used as knives to cut animal skin, date from 24,000 to 22,000 BC. The open-air findings of the Upper Paleolithic have revealed that the settlers were hunters and Homo sapiens, besides pointing to a much colder climate at the time.

Antiquity
There were Roman settlements (from around 50-200 AD) in what is now the Old Part of the city, according to excavations carried out in the convent of Santa Teresa, on the slopes of Urgull. San Sebastián is thought to have been in the territory of the Varduli in Roman times. The Roman town of Oiasso (present-day Irun) is located 10 km east of the city and it was for a long time misidentified with San Sebastián.

Medieval San Sebastian
The exact date of the city's foundation or when it was first settled is unknown. The first written evidence of the city comes from a 1014 document in which Sancho III, King of Pamplona orders the Saint Sebastian monastery to be given to the Leyre abbot and put under jurisdiction of the bishop of Pamplona. The document would be confirmed with another from 1101 signed by Peter I. The monastery mentioned on these documents was located in the present-day neighbourhood of El Antiguo and from which the name of the city eventually emerged.

San Sebastian was given a city charter (fuero) by Sancho VI around 1180, envisioning the city as the main port of the Kingdom of Navarre, a role it served for close to a century. Gipuzkoa was conquered after a military campaign and annexed by Castile in 1200, and thus San Sebastian found itself in the political sphere of influence of the Castilian and eventually Spanish monarchs. After 1200 the city would be repopulated with Gascon-speaking settlers coming from Aquitaine who left an important imprint in the city's identity in the centuries to come, including relevant toponomy such as the name of mount Urgull. The Gascon population favoured the development of trade with other European ports and with Gascony. Starting in 1265 Navarre was granted rights to use the seaport of San Sebastián.

In 1248 the Castilian monarchy started using the port of San Sebastián as a starting point for the royal naval forces, out of which departed ships that participated in the Siege of Seville that same year. The city steered clear of the destructive War of the Bands in Gipuzkoa, the only town in doing so in that territory. In fact, the town only formally joined Gipuzkoa in 1459 long after the feudal disputed had come to an end. Up to the 16th century, the city remained mostly out of wars, but by the beginning of the 15th century, a line of walls of simple construction is attested encircling the town. Despite this, the effects of the War of Bands in Gipuzkoa and also Navarre's position on the Hundred Years' War led to a decline the city's commercial role in favour of Bilbao. In January 1489 a fire devastated the city. After burning to the ground, the town began a new renaissance by building up mainly with stone instead of bare timber.

Modern age
After the catastrophe of 1489, the city experiences a period of renaissance moving from being a commercial hub, position now lost to Bilbao, to becoming a sophisticated military fortification, with the port of Pasaia becoming the main hub for the Cantabrian naval force of the kingdom. The city's position close to the Spanish borders with France and Navarre gave an important relevance to the city and thus the erection of thicker and more sophisticated walls. The town became a strategic position in the Spanish conquest of Navarre and provided critical naval support to the emperor Charles V's forces during the siege of Hondarribia, earning the titles of Muy Noble y Muy Leal ("Very Noble and Very Loyal"). The town also aided the monarch by sending a party to the Battle of Noain and providing help to quash the Revolt of the Comuneros in 1521.

During this time, the Gascons living in the city were intentionally excluded from any relevant political positions by means of a string of regional sentences upheld by royal decision, an order that was applied across all major towns and cities of Gipuzkoa. Meanwhile, the climate of war and disease left the town in a poor condition that drove many fishermen and traders to take to the sea as corsairs as a way of getting a living, most of the times under the auspices of the king Philip II of Spain, who benefited from the disruption caused to and wealth obtained from the French and Dutch trade ships.

In 1660, the city was used as the royal headquarters during the marriage of the Infanta to Louis XIV at Saint-Jean-de-Luz nearby. In 1662, San Sebastián was given the title of 'City' by Phlip IV; since the 1489 fire the town had hosted small residential areas by the military quarters, the Antiguo area and Urumea valley. After being given the city title, San Sebastián experienced a slow but steady urban growth. After a relatively peaceful 17th century, the town was besieged and taken over by the troops of the French Duke of Berwick in 1719. The city was shelled by the invading troops and a French garrison of around 2000 men occupied the city until 1721, when the city was returned to Spain by the Treaty of The Hague. In 1728, the Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas was founded and boosted commerce with the Americas. Thanks to the profit the company generated, the town underwent some urban reforms and improvements and the new Santa Maria Church was erected by subscription. This period of wealth and development was to last up to the end of 18th century.

In 1808, as part of the Peninsular War and the invasion of Spain by the First French Empire, Napoleonic troops captured and occupied the city. The recently named king of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte entered San Sebastián from France on 9 June, 1808. In 1813, after a siege of various weeks, on 28 August, during the night, a landing party from a British Royal Navy squadron captured Santa Clara Island, in the bay. Situated on a narrow promontory that jutted out into the sea between the waters of the Bay of Biscay and the broad estuary of the Urumea River, the town was hard to get at and well fortified – "it was the strongest fortification I ever saw, Gibraltar excepted", wrote William Dent. Three days later, on 31 August, British and Portuguese troops besieging San Sebastián assaulted the town. The relieving troops ransacked and burnt the city to the ground. Only the street at the foot of the hill (now called 31 August Street) remained.

Contemporary San Sebastián
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Location
San Sebastián is located at the northern edge of the Iberian Peninsula, by the Bay of Biscay and covering an area of 60.89 km2. The old city is emplaced between the mount Urgull and the bay of La Concha, being the beach of the same name one if its better known attractions. The city is surrounded by easily accesible hilly areas: Urgull adjacent to the old city, Ulia extending to the east, Adarra to the south and Igeldo to the east. The city has a mean altitude of 16 metres. It is the capital and core of the comarca of Donostialdea. It is surrounded by Bay of Biscay by the north and the municipalities of Orio, Usurbil and Lasarte-Oria to the west, Hernani to the south and Pasaia, Errenteria and Astigarraga to the east.

As other cities in its vicinity, San Sebastián is located on the Basque threshold, the range between the larger Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees. The soil is predominantly karstic limestone as well as sandstone, which characterizes the eastern half of the Gipuzkoan coast. The old city and parts of the 19th century ensanche were built on a tombolo, a sandy isthmus connecting the main land with mount Urgull.

Hidrology
The river Urumea comprises the main hydrological system of the city. The river arrives to the city from Astigarraga in the south and meanders across the quarters of Loiola and Martutene to finally reach its mouth by the old town, thus emptying to the Bay of Biscay.