The place-name Bidasoa-Txingudi is a recent creation, combining the name of the river Bidasoa, which here provides a natural frontier between France and Spain in the Basque Country, with that of a bay on the French side of the estuary, the Bay of Txingudi.
In 1999, a decade of efforts to forge closer links between these three municipalities, with a combined population of around 85,000, bore fruit in the launching of a ‘consortium’ set up to undertake cross-frontier projects in the area.
The name Txingudi, written in accordance with modern Basque orthography, was originally applied to a small marshy bay on the edges of Hendaia.
The bestowing of a new name for the area of Bidasoa-Txingudi supported efforts to create a sense of common identity among people on either side of the frontier and thus bolster acceptance of cross-frontier cooperation.
Source: Bray, Zoe 2004 Living Boundaries: frontiers and identity in the Basque Country, Brussels: PIE Peter Lang