San Antonio, Ibiza
| Sant Antoni de Portmany | ||
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| Town | ||
Sant Antoni Bay
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 Sant Antoni de Portmany
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| Coordinates: 38°58′51″N 1°18′2″E / 38.98083°N 1.30056°ECoordinates: 38°58′51″N 1°18′2″E / 38.98083°N 1.30056°E | ||
| Country | Spain | |
| Autonomous community | Balearic Islands | |
| Province | Balearic Islands | |
| Island | Ibiza | |
| Government | ||
| • Mayor | Josep Tur 'Cires' (PSIB) | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 127 km2 (49 sq mi) | |
| Elevation (AMSL) | 31 m (102 ft) | |
| Population (2012) | ||
| • Total | 22,446 | |
| • Density | 180/km2 (460/sq mi) | |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (GMT +2) (UTC+2) | |
| Postal code | 07820 | |
| Area code(s) | +34 (Spain) + 971 (Baleares) | |
| Website | Town Hall | |
Sant Antoni de Portmany (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈsant ənˈtɔni ðə purˈmaɲ], Spanish: San Antonio Abad) or San Antonio is a town on the western coast of Ibiza. It is the second-largest town and municipality in Ibiza; an island described by Time Out magazine as "arguably the clubbing capital of the universe". The town is situated on Sant Antoni Bay on the west coast of the island, part of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands.
For two thousand years, Sant Antoni was a small fishing village that rose from the Roman natural harbor Portus Magnus, but it began to grow in the late 1950s when many hotels and tourist resorts were built as part of a mass tourism initiative which took place across Spain. As the number of tourists grew, the development of bars, hotels and other tourist infrastructure spread right around to the other side of San Antonio bay, as far as Cala de Bou which lies in the adjacent municipality of Sant Josep de sa Talaia. Since the 1980s British tourists have made up the majority of summertime visitors to San Antonio.
The Egg is the best known landmark in Sant Antoni, located in the centre of the main roundabout at the entrance to the town.
The Egg is a statue erected in the early 1990s to commemorate the local claim of having been the birthplace of Christopher Columbus (there is a similar claim that Hannibal was born in the region). The statue is in the shape of an egg, containing at its centre a model of his ship: the Santa Maria.
The choice of an egg comes from a story about Columbus, who when seeking funding for his Western route to the Indies, was told it was impossible. He then allegedly asked if standing an egg upright was impossible, and when told that it was, he cracked the base of an egg, thus making it possible for it to stand upright. He was then granted funding. See Egg of Columbus.
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Wikipedia