Galicia, host to the end of the earth, Finisterre

Recently in the news, due to the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige, in December 2002, Galicia has some of the most beautiful coastline and beaches in all Spain. Yet it is far less known than the Mediterranean coast, due to the more temperate and moist climate.

The Cathedral, Santiago (CJM)

Government web site
Tourist information

Population 1/2008: 2,783,100 of whom 95,122 (3.4%) are foreigners

The Churches

Membership: (PTL 1997) 5,428
Churches: 103
Towns with over 5,000 inhabitants with no church: 66 (Decisión 2008)

List of churches
List of unevangelised towns in the province of A Coruña. Click on lower left hand map for other provinces.

Some of the best established evangelical churches of Spain can be found in towns dotting the coastal regions of Galicia. British missionaries from the Plymouth Brethren arrived here in the late nineteenth century and began the work of planting churches which have survived strong -but very conservative- to this day.

On the other hand, the number of significantly sized villages with no evangelical church is alarming. One of the problems with church planting in Galicia is the nature of municipalities. Many villages have only a few houses in the kernel, close to Catholic church and local shop. The remainder of the population live widely spread out in farm houses. This is a completely different cultural setting to the towns of the Castilian Meseta, where houses are closely packed and the countryside was traditionally totally uninhabited.