Tarragona traces Santa Tecla’s great city celebration to 1321, when a relic of the saint’s arm arrived from Armenia through royal intervention. The festival became a public expression of the city’s patronal devotion, with a ritual sequence that took shape in the medieval period. Its setting around the cathedral and upper town still makes that long relationship between civic life and religious ceremony visible.

The celebration survives through active participation by local groups, rather than historical spectacle alone. Giants, beasts, dances, musicians and human-tower teams contribute different parts of the festive language. Santa Tecla received Catalonia’s designation as a traditional festival of national interest in 1996 and Spain’s tourism recognition in 2002, acknowledging a living tradition whose continuity depends on the people carrying it through Tarragona’s streets.