Alcántara (Spain)

Alcántara municipality
	Alcántara - Roman bridge and city
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Extremadura
Province :	Cáceres
Comarca :	Tagus Salor
Coordinates	39 ° 43 ′ N , 6 ° 53 ′ W Coordinates: 39 ° 43 ′ N , 6 ° 53 ′ W
Height :	240 msnm
Area :	551.99 km²
Residents :	1,468 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	2.66 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	10980
Municipality number ( INE ):	10008
administration
Website :	Alcantara

Alcántara is a small Spanish town and a municipality ( municipio ) consisting of the main town and three hamlets ( pedanías ) with 1,468 inhabitants (as of 2019) in the province of Cáceres ( Extremadura ). The place name is from Arabicالقنطرة / al-qanṭara derived, which literally means "the bridge". The historic town center is classified as Conjunto histórico-artístico .

location

The city is located on a hill on the southeast bank of the Tagus near the border with Portugal at an altitude of approximately 240 m above sea level. d. M. The distance to the provincial capital Cáceres is about 65 km (driving distance) in a south-easterly direction; the city of Badajoz is about 115 km south. The climate is temperate to warm; Rain (approx. 500 mm / year) falls mainly in the winter half-year.

Population development

year	1842	1900	1950	2000	2016
Residents	4,272	3,248	4.151	1,650	1,518

The significant population decline since the 1950s is mainly due to the mechanization of agriculture and the associated loss of jobs.

economy

Wine and olive cultivation has been practiced in the area since Roman times. The cultivation of wheat and other crops used to be mainly self-sufficient. Today the most important source of income for the place is tourism.

history

The remains of megalithic dolmens can be found in the municipality and in the vicinity . The place was later in the border area of the Celtic Lusitanians and Vettonen , but so far no finds have been made. Around the year 200 BC BC the Romans conquered the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula . The possibly already existing place was on an important trade and military connection in the province of Lusitania and was upgraded around the year 105 AD by a bridge over the Tagus River . Again, no news is known from the late medieval and Visigoth times. After the Arab-Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, the place and its bridge continued to be important, but there are no concrete reports or discoveries. In 1213 the area was occupied by the troops of Alfonso IX. Recaptured ( reconquista ) by León (reigned 1188–1230) and handed over to the Calatrava order . A few years later (1218), the place came under the authority of the existing, but now named after him, Alcántara Knight Order . In 1580 a battle against Portuguese army units, which was ultimately victorious for the Spaniards, took place near the town. In 1703, Philip V (r. 1700–1746) declared war with Portugal as part of the War of Spanish Succession from Alcántara, which underpinned the fact that the place belonged to Spain.

Attractions

Convento de San Benito

Convento de San Benito , cloister ( claustro )

Convento de San Benito , interior

The landmark of the place is the 194 m long bridge of Alcántara from Roman times built at a narrow point of the Tagus ; it is the largest completely preserved (and still passable) Roman bridge in the world.

The Order of the Alcántara resided in the Convento de San Benito (Benedictine Monastery) in the heart of the old town until 1835 . The building, which was extended by Charles V to include a representative gallery wing with side stair towers , is now the seat of the San Benito de Alcántara Foundation , which awards the international architecture prize Premio Internacional Puente de Alcántara every two years for outstanding engineering structures . The associated church dates from the 14th century. The three-aisled interior , like a hall church, has star vaults of the same height and a polygonal broken apse with stone heraldic shields.

The construction of the church of Santa María de Almocóvar , built in the style of the late Romanesque over a destroyed mosque , was in 1254. What is particularly interesting is its portal, which protrudes slightly from the façade, but is then stepped down several times, with set columns and a multi - pass arch .

In the village or just outside there are other churches and chapels - including the Church of the Franciscan Order from 1493 , which belongs to the Convento de San Bartolomé .

The barrier structure of the “José María Oriol” dam is located approx. 600 m upstream from the Roman bridge.

Surroundings

Approx. 20 km northwest of the village is the hamlet of Segura , near which there is another Roman bridge ( Puente de Segura ) over the Río Erjas .