Loiu

Municipality

Flag

Coat of arms

Loiu

Location of Loiu within the Basque Country

Coordinates: 43°18′53″N 2°56′20″W / 43.31472°N 2.93889°WCoordinates: 43°18′53″N 2°56′20″W / 43.31472°N 2.93889°W

Country

Area

• Total

15 km² (6 sq mi)

Elevation

26 m (85 ft)

Population (2014)

• Total

2,388

• Density

160/km² (410/sq mi)

Demonym(s)

Basque: loiutarra

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

Postal code

48180

Website

Official website

Loiu (Spanish: Lujua) is a town and municipality located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain.

The new Bilbao Airport terminal has been built the municipality limits.

It is located in Asua Valley, between Derio in the east part and Erandio in the west part.

A big part of the population is dispersed around country farmhouses (called baserri or caseríos). The main neighbourhood is Zabaloetxe, where the church is located. Other urban areas are Elochelerri (in Basque Elotxelerri), in the way to Asua Valey (BI-637), next to the airport, and Lauros (Lauro).

After the last expansion of Bilbao Airport, many of its facilities, including the passengers' terminal are located within the municipality of Lujua.

In Euskera, the town is called Loiu officially. In Spanish, the town is called Lujua.

The old name of this town was Luxua, but it was converted into Spanish after the phonetic evolution of x/j (around XVII century) in Lujua (the same as Xerez -> Jerez).

In Euskera, the phonetic evolution of the toponym was different, when the -a final was lost, evolve the phonema x in a different way to the Spanish language y, and the variation of the tonic syllable lu for lo. That is Luxu(a) -> Lu(x)u -> L(u)iu -> Loiu. Euskaltzaindia adopted Loiu as the formal denomination of the name. Liou adopted its official name in 1983.

...
Wikipedia