Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is a Catholic temple located in the city of Santiago de Compostela, capital of Galicia, Spain. It was built between 1075 and 1128, in Romanesque style, at the time of the Crusades and during the Christian Reconquest, having later undergone several reforms that added Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements.

According to tradition, it houses the tomb of the Apostle Santiago Maior, patron saint and protector of Spain, which made it the main destination for Christian pilgrimage in Europe following Rome during the Middle Ages, through the so-called Camino de Santiago, an initiatory route in which followed the Milky Way that stretched across the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe. The pilgrimage was a determining factor in the political affirmation of the medieval Hispanic Christian kingdoms and in their participation in the cultural movements of their time. Today it remains an important pilgrimage destination, helped by the renewed popularity of the Camino de Santiago since the 1990s, which brought more than 270,000 registered pilgrims to the cathedral.

The cathedral was declared a Heritage Site in 1896 and the so-called old town of Santiago de Compostela, which centers around the cathedral, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985.