Avenida de la Ciudad de Barcelona

Before it was named after a distant city, this street was simply a road: first the Camino de Vallecas and then the Carretera de Valencia, Madrid’s natural exit toward the east coast. This was the way out to the Mediterranean. The name that truly stuck arrived in 1865, when the city council christened the urban stretch Calle del Pacífico. It marked the Spanish Navy’s operations in the war of 1864-1866, fought above all against Chile and Peru. The name took such deep root that it survives everywhere: it named the neighbourhood, the Pacífico metro station and a cluster of nearby streets named after naval battles. After the Civil War, Franco’s regime renamed the main road Avenida de la Ciudad de Barcelona. The exact date of the new sign has not survived, though an 1889 street directory still listed it as Calle del Pacífico.