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Benicàssim, in the Plana Alta, grew from a barony of scattered farmsteads into one of Spain's tourism pioneers, with its summer villas and the nickname «the Valencian Biarritz».
Montornés castle was an important Arab lordship. James I took it in 1233 and on 29 November 1242 gave it with its lands to his notary Pedro Sanz. The baronies of Benicàssim and Montornés changed hands often; in 1416 Alfonso V gave it to the Bishop of Vic, in 1467 John II passed it to Juan Pagés, and later it went to Nicolás de Casalduch and by inheritance to Violante de Casalduch.
On 9 September 1603 Violante de Casalduch granted the founding charter to resettle an area plagued by corsairs and Barbary raiders, with little success: only four small settlements formed. In 1769 Francisco Pérez Bayer promoted the founding of a church, built between 1769 and 1776, which gathered the people scattered in farmsteads and was decisive in forming the town.
From 1850 growth was marked. In 1887 the engineer Joan Coloma built the first summer villa, and families from Valencia later built their own. In the Civil War the International Brigades used the villas as a hospital, with up to 1,200 beds, until it was evacuated in 1938. Between the 1960s and 1990s heavy apartment building followed.
Text written by Zona Zero TV from public sources; early dates vary between authors. Sources: Benicasim (Hispanopedia, basado en Wikipedia, CC BY-SA) · Historia de Benicàssim (Turismo de Benicàssim). Checked on 2/11/2026.
