The patron saint of Arzachena is Our Lady of the Snow, celebrated on 9 September. Having gained autonomy from Tempio Pausania only in 1922, after years of hard-fought struggle, the municipality has since seen continuous urban and demographic growth, further amplified in the 1960s by the tourist boom of the Costa Smeralda, the famous resort founded in 1962 by the Ismaili prince Karim Aga Khan IV and today entirely included within the municipal territory, together with the localities of Porto Cervo, Baia Sardinia and Cannigione. With about 228 square kilometres of land and 88 kilometres of coastline, Arzachena is today Sardinia's leading municipality for tourist arrivals and overnight stays.
The territory also preserves an archaeological heritage of great importance: on the outskirts of the town stands the Albucciu nuraghe, built right against a granite outcrop, while not far away lies the nuraghic complex of Malchittu, with its rectangular-plan temple and semicircular apse, datable between the 16th and 14th centuries BC. In antiquity the area, known as Arseguen, was the capital of the Unale curatoria within the Giudicato of Gallura, before gradually depopulating under Aragonese rule amid Saracen raids and plagues, ending up almost uninhabited in the second half of the 16th century.
