Mundaka is a town that lies on the estuary of a tidal inlet with the same name. The parish forms part of the district of Busturia. Very litle is known about its origins which has given rise to many fables and legends about its founding.
It is however recorded that parish of Mundaka, which was originally known as Munaca, had a right to vote and held the seat number one in the General Assembly of the Lordship of Biscay, which leads to the belief that this parish is the oldest of the Lordship.
Among the first recordings of Mundaka is the Palace of Altamira, where the Infanta of Scotland is believed to have lived towards the end of the 11th century. She was Jaun Zuria's mother, the first Lord of Biscay.
The village lived of fishing and maritime trading since time immemorial (it was an important seat of the guild of fishermen). From the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury, the parish was modernised and transformed, and tourism became a new source of income, in particular in the eighties when surf became a fashion across the Basque Country, and more so in this town because of its famous left wave considered one of the best in the world.
