Lloseta, Mallorca, Things to do and see, hotels, market

History of Lloseta

The first vestiges of human habitation in the area dates back to the pretalayotic period (about 2,500 BC), from which 5 camps, 4 burial sites and 1 fortification has been excavated.

Following the Catalan conquest of Mallorca (1229 –  1232), king Jaume I gave the area to the viscount of Bearn, Guillem de Montcada, who distributed it among his own knights. At that time, the area had two farms; Lloseta and Aiamans, both part of the Juz d’Canarossa, a Muslim district that also included Binissalem.

Lloseta remained a small community up through the Middle Ages, in the end of the 17th century (1697) a cadastre concluded a total of 300 inhabitants.

During the War of Succession, the count of Aiamans, Miquel Joan Ballester Togores, took part in favor of the Bourbon side. He and the family of Sales, owners of the Son Pelai estate, organized armed troops to defend the coastline of Sa Porrassa and Santa Ponça against troops of Felipe V, along with men from Binissalem. The victory of the Bourbon side meant that the count of Aiamans became an important counselor for the council of Palma.

Up until the Spanish Constitution in 1812, Lloseta belonged to the municipality of Binissalem.

From the beginning of the 20th century, Lloseta grew as an important distribution center for coal and limestone, this can be seen in the old loading station next to the railway station. The areas of Selva, Biniamar and Lloseta were all supplying coal and limestone to the rest of the island, and the railway connection of Lloseta made it possible to distribute.

However, mining was not the only industry in Lloseta in the 20th century, shoe production also gave employment to many people. The increasing occupation made Lloseta a more attractive area to live, and so, in the last half of the 20th century the population was about 4,500 inhabitants.