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Onda is a town in the Plana Baixa, at the foot of the Espadán mountains and beside the River Mijares, with some 25,800 inhabitants. Its history can be read in the castle above the old quarter, in the old Moorish quarter and in the layers of people who have lived here for more than two thousand years, until it became one of Europe's great tile-making capitals.
The oldest remains date from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, and by Iberian times settlement is clear. Local sources recall the name Sepelaco for this settlement, which under Rome became Sepelaci. The municipal chronology places the arrival of the Romans in 214 BC, under Quintus Marcius and Publius Cornelius.
Under Islam, Onda became a stable settlement around the early 11th century, with the castle at its heart. Around 1090-1092 the Cid took it, according to the tradition of the Cantar, though it returned to Muslim hands a few years later. Sources do not agree on the exact date, as with many early dates.
James I conquered the town around 1237 (other authors say between 1238 and 1242). In 1242 he gave the castle to his wife, Queen Yolanda of Hungary, and on 4 May 1248 the founding charter was granted to Raimon de Bocona, Guillem de Rocafort and 300 settlers; some sources give 28 April.
From then on the Muslims left the walled enclosure and formed the Morería, the quarter outside the walls where they continued to live. Christians, Jews and Muslims shared the town for centuries, until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and of the Moriscos in 1609.
In the Middle Ages Onda changed hands several times: in 1280 it was exchanged with the Order of Amposta, in 1298 it passed to the Hospitallers and in 1319 to the Order of Montesa. In 1393 an agreement between John I and Montesa shared out the rights over the town again. It was also a market town: the St Michael fair was authorised in 1267.
In 1467 a fire ruined the parish church. In 1512 Ferdinand the Catholic gave the town to Alfonso of Aragon; in 1526, during the Germanías revolt, Onda was the headquarters of the Duke of Segorbe, and in 1550 the convent of the Purísima was founded. After the expulsion of the Moriscos, in 1616 the town gained representation in the Cortes of the Kingdom, and in 1727 work began on today's church of the Asunción.
French troops entered Onda on 2 October 1811, came back in 1812 and left on 5 July 1813. In the First Carlist War Cabrera passed through (1836), the castle was dismantled in 1838 and the town was fortified the following year.
In 1842 Tales split from Onda, and in 1849 it had 4,517 inhabitants. In 1890 the steam train between Onda and the Grao de Castellón arrived, and in 1897 an electric power plant was installed.
First citrus and then, above all, ceramics drove the economy and made Onda a major tile-making centre. The Provincial School of Ceramics was created in 1925. In the 1950s and 60s the population nearly doubled with migrants from the south of Spain, and this century it has grown again with families from Romania, the Maghreb and South America.
The castle, known as the one of the «three hundred towers» for those on its wall (of which little remains besides the Puerta de San Pedro, from 1578), was bought in 1919 by Father Elías Sendra. In 1936 the parish church burned and the town was bombed; in 1963 the railway closed.
Text written by Zona Zero TV from public sources; early dates vary between authors. Sources: Historia de Onda (Ayuntamiento de Onda) · Onda (Castellón), Wikipedia · Murallas de Onda, Fortificaciones de España. Checked on 1/11/2026.
