Although the site of an Iron Age settlement, Ferrol only began to develop when the Bourbons named the city as the capital of one of the Maritime Departments in 1726. The decision led to military engineers coming to the city to plan the city and its most important buildings: the Arsenal de la Graña, the castles on the estuary, the Esteiro shipyard, the street of La Magdalena, as well as the churches of San Julián and San Francisco, amongst others, all of which have contributed to Ferrol being very much a neoclassical-style city. Its builders also worked in other towns in Galicia and used the same new approaches that they had used in Ferrol.

 

Life in this bustling city has always revolved around the shipyards, shipbuilding in general, and the military.