Castellar de la Frontera

Castellar de la Frontera municipality
The castle of Castellar de la Frontera
coat of arms	Map of Spain
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Andalusia
Province :	Cadiz
Comarca :	Campo de Gibraltar
Coordinates	36 ° 17 ′  N , 5 ° 25 ′  W Coordinates: 36 ° 17 ′  N , 5 ° 25 ′  W
Height :	47  msnm
Area :	178.84 km²
Residents :	3,049 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	17.05 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	11350 La Almoraima : 11349
Municipality number  ( INE ):	11013
administration
Mayor :	Juan Casanova Correa ( Izquierda Unida )
Website :	www.castellardelafrontera.es
Location of the municipality

Castellar de la Frontera is a municipality ( municipality ) in southern Spain in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous region of Andalusia, about 121 kilometers from the provincial capital of Cádiz .

geography

The municipality of Castellar de la Frontera is a small town on the eastern side of the Parque Natural Los Alcornocales nature reserve . It is located in the Comarca of Campo de Gibraltar . It borders in the northwest on the municipality of Alcalá de la Frontera, in the northeast on Jimena de la Frontera , in the southeast on San Roque and in the southwest on Los Barrios .

The municipality has three settlement centers: Castellar Nuevo (New Castellar) is the main town. Castillo de Castellar , called Castellar Viejo (Old Castellar) or simply El Castillo (the castle), is nine kilometers north-north-west of it on the edge of the Embalse de Guadarranque reservoir . La Almoraima , which emerged from a former monastery, connects to the south-east of the main town.

Castellar Nuevo is special because it was only rebuilt between 1968 and 1971 as part of the plan for the development of Campo Gibraltar for the inhabitants of the original settlement core of Castellar Viejo and the inhabitants of La Almoraima, which had been greatly expanded by an industrial company.

The reservoir of the Río Guadarranque , created in the 1960s, is located in the municipality west of Castellar Viejo .

On January 1, 2019, 3,049 people lived in the municipality of Castellar de la Frontera.

history

Alley in the medina of the castle of Castellar de la Frontera

The area of ​​the Campo de Gibraltar has been inhabited since the Stone Age. In the vicinity of Castellar Viejo there are traces of stone processing and cave paintings, which indicate a frequent to permanent presence of humans. Iberian tribes such as the Turdetans also settled here later. Archaeological finds indicate that the Iberians used the strategically outstanding hilltop with a wide panoramic view to the Rock of Gibraltar to build a watchtower, i. H. used for military purposes.

In addition, Celtic traces can be found in the Campo de Gibraltar . From the 8th century BC Phoenicians landed in BC , then probably Greeks , later Carthaginians and Romans . From the 2nd century BC The area of ​​Castellar belonged to the Roman province of Hispania ulterior and, after its division under Emperor Augustus, to the province of Baetica .

At Castellar Viejo there is a Calzada romana , a paved Roman road that connected the formerly most important port of Carteia in the Bay of Algeciras with the Roman provincial capital Corduba . It is very likely that a settlement was built on the hilltop of Castellar to protect and monitor the road, and remains of it were found. In addition, there are traces of Roman cultivation in the form of stone blocks into which tubs with a drain were knocked in order to presumably press grapes in them. This suggests an agricultural use of the area.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the area on the Strait of Gibraltar was conquered by Vandal tribes , then by Visigoths and the Eastern Roman Empire . From the early 8th century it belonged to the Arab-Moorish territory of al-Andalus . In the 13th century, due to the threat from the northern Spanish empires, especially Castile , the castle Castellar, which can still be seen today, was built on the hilltop as one of several border fortresses of the Nasrids of Granada . The part of the name de la Frontera (at the border) refers to the border location in the emirate of Granada and can be found in a number of neighboring places such as Jimena de la Frontera in the north.

Castellar was conquered by Juan de Saavedra in 1434 as part of the Reconquista , i.e. the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian descendants of the population of the Visigothic Empire, and his descendant Juan Arias de Saavedra was given nobility in 1539 by Charles V , the first Spanish king bestowed with the rule of the Condado de Castellar (County of Castellar).

In 1603 the Count of Castellar founded the monastery of San Miguel de La Almoraima for the Catholic male order of the Mercedarians . It was the nucleus of today's La Almoraima. In 1945, the Empresa Corchera Almoraima cork factory was built here, where many of Castellar's residents worked or delivered cork from the extensive cork oak forests in the area. The number of workers grew rapidly in the following years, so that La Almoraima had over 1500 inhabitants at times. Most of its population, like most of the residents of Castellar Viejo, moved to Castellar Nuevo after the new city was built in 1971. The focus was probably on improving the living situation towards hygienic living conditions and a technical and social infrastructure.

politics

Juan Casanova Correa of ​​the Izquierda Unida has been the mayor of Castellar de la Frontera since 2011 .

Culture and sights

The Castillo de Castellar is a historic landmark in Castellar Viejo. It is about eight kilometers above the main town. It dates from the 13th century and was classified as a National Heritage Bien de Interés Cultural in 1963 . The settlement within the castle walls, the medina , also dates from the Moorish era. Similar to the Alhambra , the castle is one of the few in Spain that has such a medina within the castle walls. The outdoor facilities and the partly inhabited medina can be visited free of charge. In the castle there is a hotel, a restaurant, handicraft shops and a falconry. Some of the old buildings in the medina have been converted into holiday apartments.

Parque Natural Los Alcornocales

A large part of the municipality of Castellar de la Frontera is located in the eastern part of the Parque Natural Los Alcornocales . The nature park takes its name from the cork oaks that grow here , the most striking feature of which is the peeled and therefore brown-red appearing trunks.

The old Roman road below Castellar Viejo formerly connected Carteia, the most important port of the Bay of Algeciras in Roman times, with the provincial capital of Córdoba. The Calzada romana stretches steeply up the slope to the Castillo and can be walked for about two kilometers. Further remains from Roman times are about two kilometers north of Castellar Viejo next to the Dehesa Finca La Boyal , which the municipality received in 1981 in a court case from the Counts of Castellar after centuries of dispute. The procedure was u. a. the later Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González involved on the part of the municipality.

There is a zoo in the La Almoraima district.

Economy and Transport

The municipality's economic basis is primarily the use of cork oak stocks, but also livestock farming and, increasingly, tourism.

The main town of Castellar Nuevo is 12 kilometers north of the Taraguilla junction of the A-7 coastal motorway , which runs along the Mediterranean coast from Algeciras to Barcelona . It is 23 kilometers from the centers of Algeciras and La Línea de la Concepción and 40 kilometers from Estepona . Gibraltar is 25 kilometers south of Castellar Nuevo and can also be easily reached via an expressway.

Castellar de la Frontera has a train station on the Algeciras - Ronda - Granada line . The MD 70 line of the Spanish State Railways RENFE runs here with diesel multiple units . The stop is in the La Almoraima district and is named Almoraima after him.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cifras oficiales de población resultantes de la revisión del Padrón municipal a 1 de enero . Population statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (population update).
2. ↑ www.castellardelafrontera.es Homepage of the municipality of Castellar de la Frontera; Spanish, accessed August 29, 2013.
3. ↑ IAPH INSTITUTO ANDALUZ DEL PATRIMONIO HISTÓRICO listing of historically relevant finds in the municipality of Castellar de la Frontera; Spanish, accessed August 29, 2013.
4. ↑ Patrimonio Cultural database of protected cultural assets in Spain; Spanish, accessed August 29, 2013.
5. ↑ History of Dehesa La Boyal ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the web site of the municipality of Castellar de la Frontera; Spanish, accessed August 31, 2013.  
6. ↑ RENFE Homepage of the Spanish State Railways; Spanish, accessed August 31, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Castellar de la Frontera  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• How the cork is harvested (video)