Rua de Francos

Rua de Francos is a locality in the municipality of Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña, Galicia. The name means street of the Franks, referring to the communities of northern European settlers broadly called Francos in medieval Iberia, who established themselves along the Camino routes serving pilgrim traffic. These settler communities developed commercial and craft quarters adjacent to the main pilgrimage roads throughout the medieval period.

The locality lies on the outer approach to Santiago de Compostela, in the zone where medieval pilgrimage infrastructure gave way to the urban core of the city. The name preserves a direct linguistic memory of the medieval pilgrimage economy and its transformative effect on settlement patterns.

For pilgrims today, Rua de Francos is one of the final named localities before the route enters the historic city centre and arrives at the cathedral.