Country Spain Comarca Greater Bilbao Demonym(s) Basque: loiutarra Area 15 km² Population 2,388 (2014) | Autonomous community Basque Country Elevation 26 m (85 ft) Time zone CET (UTC+1) Local time Sunday 7:41 AM Province Biscay | |
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Weather 13°C, Wind W at 21 km/h, 69% Humidity | ||
Loiu (Spanish: Lujua) is a town and municipality located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain.
Contents
Map of Loiu, Biscay, Spain
The new Bilbao Airport terminal has been built the municipality limits.
Geography
It is located in Asua Valley, between Derio in the east part and Erandio in the west part.
Composition
A big part of the population is dispersed around country farmhouses (called baserri or caseríos). The main neighbourhood is Zabaloetxe, where the church is located. Other urban areas are Elochelerri (in Basque Elotxelerri), in the way to Asua Valey (BI-637), next to the airport, and Lauros (Lauro).
Airport
After the last expansion of Bilbao Airport, many of its facilities, including the passengers' terminal are located within the municipality of Lujua.
Toponym
In Euskera, the town is called Loiu officially. In Spanish, the town is called Lujua.
The old name of this town was Luxua, but it was converted into Spanish after the phonetic evolution of x/j (around XVII century) in Lujua (the same as Xerez -> Jerez).
In Euskera, the phonetic evolution of the toponym was different, when the -a final was lost, evolve the phonema x in a different way to the Spanish language y, and the variation of the tonic syllable lu for lo. That is Luxu(a) -> Lu(x)u -> L(u)iu -> Loiu. Euskaltzaindia adopted Loiu as the formal denomination of the name. Liou adopted its official name in 1983.