Lepe

Lepe is a Spanish town in the province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is near the Portuguese border. According to the 2009 census, the city has a population of 25,886 inhabitants.

Economy

Until the late 1970s its economy was based on fishing but Lepe is now one of the wealthiest villages in the region thanks to its intensive farming of strawberries, which are exported all over Europe.

Lepe is known for its strawberries.

History

Although deposits have been found of Neolithic and Bronze Age, there is not evidence of stable settlements in the municipality of Lepe. The influence of Tartessian people did not arrive to Lepe, except for a meager remains in the Tower of Catalan pointing to the silver trade. During the initial period of Roman rule, Lepe there was a rustics villas and fish farms at the present location of in Lepe and Valsequillo and El Terrón. The retreat of the coast caused the abandonment of the settlement of Valsequillo, while fishing by El Terrón has continued until today. It is during the heyday of Roman rule when it blooms Lepe settlement located in a small village, linked to farming their fields and fishing port of El Terron. Based on classical texts, several authors have identified the current location of Lepe settlements with Laipe Megala (Rodrigo Caro, 1634), Laepa (García y Bellido, 1947; G. Bonsor, JP and E. Garrido Orta, 1922) and Praesidium (Luzon, 1975). Of all these options is Laepa which has more support among historians, although as a small country villa rather than a village itself. It is after the second wave of Arab conquests when Lepe becomes the economic center of the area, growing from a small farmhouse to a "city about the Ocean Sea," as was described by the geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi later in the 1229. The name given during the period of Arab rule is Labb, which derives in the current name.