Sant Vicent del Raspeig: from airfield to university city

San Vicente del Raspeig adjoins Alicante on the north and is, in population, the largest of the towns that ring the city. It grew from a farming village strung along the road inland into a town of about sixty thousand people, and the single fact that most shapes it today is that the main campus of the University of Alicante sits on its southern edge, on the ground of a former airfield.

A roadside village

The town takes its name from a tradition that Saint Vincent Ferrer preached here in the early fifteenth century, on the boundary of Alicante's territory. For centuries it was a small agricultural settlement, dependent on Alicante and then a separate municipality from the early nineteenth century, working the dry fields of almonds, vines and cereals on the road towards Castalla and the interior. Its growth was slow until the second half of the twentieth century, when Alicante's expansion reached its edge and San Vicente filled the gap between the city and its own old centre with housing, industry and, on the southern side, the university.

The airfield at Rabasa

On the plain between the village and Alicante an aerodrome was laid out at Rabasa. The first aircraft landed there in 1911, and from 1920 the French company Latécoère used it as a stop on the pioneering airmail route between Toulouse and North Africa. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, later the author of The Little Prince, flew that line and passed through Rabasa in the 1920s. Military buildings were added in the 1940s. The control tower and the main hangar still stand and are now protected structures on the university campus.

The university

A Centre for University Studies opened on part of the airfield in 1968, sharing the ground with a flying club for another decade. In 1979 the University of Alicante was created on that base, and the Ministry of Defence transferred the former military land for it to expand. The campus that grew there is compact, green and walkable, planned as a single designed space, and it now has more than thirty thousand students. It also holds the university's science park and a cluster of research institutes. Its presence explains much about the modern town: a young population, student housing, a tram line to Alicante and a service economy geared to the campus.

Away from the campus, San Vicente is a working town of industrial estates, retail parks and postwar neighbourhoods. Its old centre keeps the eighteenth-century church of San Vicente Ferrer and a compact grid of streets, and the boundary with Alicante has long been disputed because the university land and nearby districts were carved out of ground both councils claim. On the plain towards Agost, the Iberian and Roman remains at the Cañada del Fenollar mark an older route between the coast and the interior.

Visiting

The university campus is open to walk through and the preserved control tower and hangar are the clearest reminder of what the site was. The town centre, around the church of San Vicente Ferrer, holds a large market and celebrates its patronal festival with the Moros y Cristianos. The city next door is covered in the reviewed guide to Alicante, and the pottery town on the far side of the plain in the guide to Agost.

Sources and review

Reviewed in September 2026 using the University of Alicante's Ecocampus pages on the Rabasa aerodrome and hangar for the 1911 first flight, the Latécoère airmail route, Saint-Exupéry's connection and the 1940s military buildings, the university's own history for the 1968 Centre for University Studies and the 1979 creation of the University of Alicante on the airfield land, and Ayuntamiento de San Vicente del Raspeig material for the name from Saint Vincent Ferrer, the church, the Cañada del Fenollar remains and the town's agricultural past. Student numbers and campus arrangements change year to year, so consult the university directly for current figures.