page_title: Lleida
section_title: Traditional culture
hierarchical_section_title: Lleida / Culture / Traditional culture
caption_attribution_description: Català: Els Gegants de Lleida davant de la Paeria
context_page_description: Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida.
  Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as well as the largest city in the province. It had 137,387 inhabitants as of 2010, including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs.
  Lleida is one of the oldest towns in Catalonia, with recorded settlements dating back to the Bronze Age period. Until the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the area served as a settlement for an Iberian people, the Ilergetes. The town became a municipality, named Ilerda, under the reign of Augustus. It was ruled by the Moors from the 8th century, and reconquered in 1149. In 1297, the University of Lleida was founded, becoming the third oldest in the whole of Spain. During the following centuries, the town was damaged by several wars such as the Reapers' War in the 17th century and the Spanish Civil War in the 20th century. Since then, the city has been in constant urban, commercial and demographic growth.
context_section_description: Traditional celebrations include the main annual town festivity: Festa Major; Fira de Sant Miquel and L’Aplec del Caragol (escargot-eating festival, the biggest in the world of this sort, held at the Camps Elisis since 1980).
  The latter is a gastronomical festivity focused on escargot cooking and is celebrated yearly at the end of May. "L'Aplec" gathers thousands of people around the table to taste the most traditional dishes from Lleida.
  Due to its strong popularity, it was declared a traditional festivity of national interest in 2002 by the Generalitat of Catalonia and two years later it was also declared as such by the Spanish Government.
  The main traditional celebrations in Lleida are chaired by the twelve emblematic "Gegants de la Paeria" (Giants of the Town Hall), the two oldest made in 1840.
caption: The Giants of Lleida in front of the Paeria
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