Huelva (US: /ˈhwɛlvə/ WHEL-və, Spanish: [ˈwelβa] , locally [ˈɡweɾβa]) is a municipality of Spain and the capital of the province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, it sits between the estuaries of the Odiel and Tinto rivers on the Atlantic coast of the Gulf of Cádiz. According to the 2010 census, the city had a population of 149,410.
While the existence of an earlier pre-Phoenician settlement within the current urban limits since c. 1250 BC has been tentatively defended by scholars, Phoenicians established a stable colony roughly by the 9th century BC. Modern economic activity conformed to copper and pyrite extraction upstream funded by British capital and to the role of its port, as well as with the later development of a petrochemical industry.
