Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and Spain’s second-largest city, with around 1.73 million people in the municipality and more than five million in the wider metropolitan area. Its origins stretch back more than 2,000 years to the Roman colony of Barcino, founded around 10 BC, and remains of the Roman walls and streets can still be seen in the Gothic Quarter. The medieval centre later expanded into one of the Mediterranean’s major trading cities, while the 19th-century Eixample district transformed Barcelona with its distinctive grid plan and Modernisme architecture. Major landmarks include the Sagrada Família, Park Güell, the Gothic Quarter, Montjuïc and the waterfront, while neighbourhoods such as El Raval, Gràcia and Poble-sec have long been associated with bars, clubs and live music. Barcelona also has a substantial heavy metal history, particularly from the early 1980s, when bands including EVO, Tigres and Tro emerged from the city and helped establish one of Spain’s most active early metal scenes.

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