Loiu

Loiu is a town and municipality located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain.The new Bilbao Airport terminal has been built the municipality limits.GeographyIt is located in Asua Valley, between Derio in the east part and Erandio in the west part.CompositionA big part of the population is dispersed around country farmhouses . The main neighbourhood is Zabaloetxe, where the church is located. Other urban areas are Elochelerri, in the way to Asua Valey, next to the airport, and Lauros .AirportAfter the last expansion of Bilbao Airport, many of its facilities, including the passengers' terminal are located within the municipality of Lujua.ToponymIn 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 17th 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.