the parish church devoted to Santiago Apóstol is located, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (Town Hall Square) and the Asturias Avenue, where the Casa de Cultura (House of Culture) that hosts the municipal library, and most of the shops and bars, restaurants and hotels are located. This area includes also the Everardo Villamil Street and the Republic of Cuba Avenue. Boal de Abajo (Lower Boal): it has grown along the AS-12 road (Melquiades Álvarez Street and Isidoro Fontana Street) and the Rosalía de la Cruz Street, hosting some interesting examples of the architecture of those emigrants who had made fortune in the Americas, among which we can stress the Casa de Damiana (1919) and, already on the road out of the village in direction to Grandas de Salime, Villa Anita (1926), decorated with glazed tiles in all its façades. Moreover, the elementary school (Escuelas Graduadas, nowadays called Centro Público de Educación Básica Carlos Bousoño) and the high school, together with the municipal sports center and pool are located in this area. Villages of the parish of Boal Demography Evolution of the population in the municipality of Boal since 1842 (Source: INE) During the first decades of the 19th century the municipality of Boal kept a slow increase of population that was noticeably accelerated with the construction of the dam of Doiras in 1930, reaching in that year its historical maximum of 7,365 inhabitants. The relatively high levels of population remained until 1960, not just because of the dam but also because of the tungsten mining near Penouta and because of the existence of a traditional agriculture requiring a lot of labor. Thanks to all these factors, the municipality of Boal could be once the most populous one in the middle course of the Navia River. Nevertheless, from 1960 on and due to the closing of mines and to the changes experienced by the traditional agriculture, a very important migratory flow started. Emigration has marked the municipality in different ways. By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th one, the migratory flow went overseas, to the Americas, especially to Argentina and Cuba, from where emigrants kept their influence in the municipality. A proof of that are the very important money transferences they made and which allowed the construction of different buildings, as well as their promoting of the education of the remaining youth in Boal. All this