Throughout history, many peoples have made contact with and inhabited the Odiel estuary, on the southwest coast of Spain. Navigators and merchants from distant countries sought the region’s riches in metals: Tartessians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths… And with the passage of time, we know that the feat of the Discovery of America originated in the port area of Huelva, specifically in La Rábida and the Port of Palos. Its author was Christopher Columbus, although the sailors of Huelva played an enormous role in the first voyages to the New World, especially in the one that revealed America to Europe.

During the Modern Age, the town of Huelva, together with Puerto de Santa María, led the fishing industry on the Atlantic coast of Andalusia, and closely linked to this activity was the exploitation of salt. The town council regulated the sale of fresh fish by means of ordinances, which were carried out using the same auction system as today. Specifically in the 18th century, the danger of pirates diminished and the economy was reactivated by this circumstance, together with the transfer of the Casa de Contratación from Seville to Cadiz – which integrated the Port of Huelva into the American circuits – and the creation of the Huelva Customs Office.

In this context, in December 1873, a group of influential people from the province of Huelva contributed with their tenacity to the birth of the Special Board of Commerce and Port of Huelva, the current Port Authority of Huelva. Thus, the administrative development of the institution took place slowly: Regulations for its regime, expenditure budget, works plan, constitution of the definitive Board, etc. Alongside this evolution, a great effort was made by the technical engineers in the work of channelling and dredging the river to enable the movement of the large ships which, with the new technology, were beginning to be launched. The first director of the Port of Huelva, Carlos Mª Cortés, was appointed by the king in 1876 and, subsequently, in 1880, the first general project for the Port was approved, which gradually built up its original infrastructures and in 1888 the South Quay was inaugurated.

The Port of Huelva, in terms of fishing, began to develop at the end of the 19th century, coinciding with the acquisition of the first English steam boats by Huelva shipowners, and as a result of the increase in catches, a new fish market was built for the sale of fish in 1893, on the grounds of the Dock, which was in operation until 1970, when it was moved to the northern part of the Levante quay.

The Port of Huelva is located on the South Atlantic arc of Europe, close to the Strait of Gibraltar, at the crossroads of the North-South and East-West shipping routes. Huelva is a natural estuary port. With a protected water area of 1,120 hectares. It is the port with the largest extension of free surface area to be concessioned in the state port system, with 1,700 hectares. It has 8.5 kilometres of public and private quays.

With a great specialisation in liquid and solid bulk traffic, the Port of Huelva is an industrial and energy port, which has a new quay with a logistics vocation, the South Quay, where it operates a regular container line. (www.opdr.com) to northern Europe and a ferry linking Huelva with the Canary Islands. (www.navieraarmas.com), as well as receiving cruise ship calls.

Open 365 days a year, the entrance channel is between 200 and 300 metres wide and has a depth of 13 metres at low tide. It has good motorway connections with Seville and other Andalusian provinces, Madrid and the Portuguese Algarve. As for rail connections, it is connected to Seville, Cordoba, Extremadura and Madrid.