- published: 08 Feb 2016
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A Coruña (Galician: [a koˈɾuɲa]) or La Coruña (Spanish: [la koˈɾuɲa]) (still sometimes known as Corunna in English, and archaically as The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country. The city is the provincial capital of the province of the same name, having also served as political capital of the Kingdom of Galicia from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and as a regional administrative centre between 1833 and 1982, before being replaced by Santiago de Compostela.
A Coruña is a busy port located on a promontory in the entrance of an estuary in a large gulf (the Portus Magnus Artabrorum of the classical geographers) on the Atlantic Ocean. It provides a distribution point for agricultural goods from the region. Although much of the heavy industry is based on the shipyards and metalworks of the neighbouring city of Ferrol, there is an oil refinery in A Coruña itself.
In English, use of the Spanish or Galician forms now predominates. However, the traditional form Corunna can still be found, particularly in reference to the Battle of Corunna in the Peninsular War. Archaically, the city was known as The Groyne, probably from French "La Corogne", although this name could also be as much a geographical description given the city occupies a small peninsula protruding out into the Atlantic. In Spain, currently the only official form of the name is the Galician one, "A Coruña". Nonetheless, the Spanish form, La Coruña, is still widespread, and it is the traditional name in Spanish recommended by the Real Academia Española for texts in Spanish. It is usually used in extra-official documents and in conversations between Spanish-speakers.[citation needed]