holic in his final conquest. The next six years, the town was deserted until 1491, when the king order to Alonso Palmero the colonization of the area with thirty old Christians and himself as a mayor, but an earthquake and the constant pirate’s attacks, makes impossible to habit the town. It was in these times when the Arabic name became Castilianize and the town started to be Benalmaina.
Modern age
In 1784, the Italian Félix Solesio purchased the farm “Arroyo de la Miel” to build six paper factories to supply the Royal Factory of Playing Cards of Macharaviaya. The destination for most production was the American market. This would mean the birth of the nucleus Arroyo de la Miel around the new business and the factories built at the actual “Plaza de España”, where now day it can be visited the gate “Portal de San Carlos” with the badge of Solesio and the building “La tribuna”. In this square, a monument to the founder of this complex was erected. In the nineteenth century, the city growth through the exploitation of the muscatel raisins and grapes for the wine production, but the plague of phylloxera ruined crops across the province. Since then, epidemics of malaria, typhoid and cholera undermine the population. The municipality’s population boom began in the fifties and sixties, with the birth and development of mass tourism on the Spanish coast. Many established hotels, restaurants and businesses opened in this period, such as the Hotel Triton [1961], Tivoli World amusement park [1973], Torrequebrada casino and hotel [1979], Selwo Aquarium, Sea Life Aquarium, Chollocasa, Cable car, Irentinsapain, Hotel Alay. There have been many more in the last decade, making Benalmádena a very well known location in the Malaga area
