Alicante · L'Alacantí
The largest of Alicante's ring towns by population, a former farming village whose southern edge is the University of Alicante campus, built on the ground of the Rabasa airfield.
From airfield to campus
Sant Vicent del Raspeig was a small settlement on the road inland until Alicante's expansion reached its edge after 1960. It is now a town of about sixty thousand people.
The Rabasa aerodrome on its southern boundary saw the first aircraft to land near Alicante in 1911 and a pioneering Toulouse to Africa airmail route in the 1920s. The University of Alicante was created on that land in 1979 and preserves the control tower and hangar.
Fast facts
INE padrón, 1 Jan 2025
56,302 in 2015
Read Sant Vicent del Raspeig
How a roadside farming village, the Rabasa airfield and its airmail history, and the creation of the University of Alicante on that land in 1979 built the largest of Alicante's ring towns.
Published 1 September 2026
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