Ferrol () is a city in the Province of A Coruña in Galicia, on the Atlantic coast in north-western Spain, in the vicinity of Strabo's Cape Nerium (modern day Cape Prior). According to the 2021 census, the city has a population of 64,785, making it the seventh largest settlement in Galicia. With Eume to the south and Ortegal the north, Ferrol forms the Ferrolterra comarca, and together with A Coruña forms the second largest conurbation in Galicia, with a total population of 640,000 in 2016. The harbour, for depth, capacity and safety, is not equalled by many in Europe. The entrance is very narrow, commanded by forts, and may even be shut by a boom. The city has been a major naval shipbuilding centre for most of its history, being the capital of the Spanish Navy's Maritime Department of the North since the time of the early Bourbons. Before that, in the 17th century, Ferrol was the most important arsenal in Europe. Today, the city contains some of the major shipbuilding yards of the Navantia Group. As the birthplace of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1892, the municipality was officially named after him as "El Ferrol del Caudillo" from September 1938 to December 1982. It was also the birthplace of the founder of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Pablo Iglesias, in 1850. The city is one of the starting points of the English Way path of the Camino de Santiago. Because of the modern requirement that pilgrims must travel 100 km by foot in order to be officially recognized, Ferrol is the preferred starting point for pilgrims traversing the English Way. Toponym and etymology The first historical mention of this settlement, then called Burum as well as Arotebrarum Portum in the history of Pomponius Mela, a Roman historian who wrote in the year AD 43 detailing a description of the Portus Magnus Artabrorum, the "great port of the Artabri". The current toponym Ferrol, though, can only be traced back to the Middle Ages; a document of 1087 instances sancto Iuliano de Ferrol, nearby the monastery of San Martín de Jubia (12th century, in Romanesque style), where Ferrol is probably the local evolution of the genitive form of the Latin name Ferreolus; Ferrol was probably, in origin, the estate of one Ferreolus. In 1982 the government of Spain adopted officially Ferrol in consonance with its long history and tradition. Another