Hontoba

Hontoba municipality
	Hontoba - town center with court column (picota); and Iglesia de San Pedro
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Castile-La Mancha
Province :	Guadalajara
Comarca :	La Alcarria
Coordinates	40 ° 27 ′ N , 3 ° 2 ′ W Coordinates: 40 ° 27 ′ N , 3 ° 2 ′ W
Height :	730 msnm
Area :	7.25 km²
Residents :	86 (Jan. 1, 2019)
Population density :	11.86 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	19142
Municipality number ( INE ):	19119
administration
Website :	Hontoba

Hontoba is a central Spanish town and municipality ( municipio ) with 318 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) in the province of Guadalajara in the autonomous region of Castile-La Mancha . The municipality belongs to the sparsely populated region of the Serranía Celtibérica .

Location and climate

The approximately 730 m City Hontoba high altitude located in the center of the landscape of Alcarria about 300 meters north of a river bend of the Tagus to the north of the southern part of the Iberian plateau ( meseta ) . Guadalajara , the provincial capital, is a good 40 km (driving distance) to the northwest; the lovely town of Pastrana is only about 15 km southeast. The climate in winter is temperate, while in summer it is warm to hot; the rather low amounts of precipitation (approx. 455 mm / year) fall - with the exception of the almost rainless summer months - distributed over the whole year.

Population development

year	1857	1900	1950	2000	2019
Residents	395	470	504	187	318

As a result of the mechanization of agriculture , the abandonment of small farms and the resulting loss of jobs, the population of the municipality has decreased significantly since the middle of the 20th century ( rural exodus ). The renewed population increase at the beginning of the 21st century can be explained by the relative proximity to the eastern cities in the greater Madrid area.

economy

The people of earlier centuries lived mainly as self-sufficiency from agriculture and livestock farming , whose durable products (cheese, sausage, animal skins and wool) could be exchanged or sold at traveling traders.

history

The Celts , Romans , Visigoths and even the Moors left no usable traces on the municipality. In the second half of the 11th century the latter were by the army of King Alfonso VI. driven out of the region by León ( reconquista ) , who gave the area to the Order of Calatrava ; then began the phase of repopulation ( repoblación ) by Christians from many parts of the Iberian Peninsula . A written mention of the place name from the High Middle Ages is not known and so it is assumed that it originated in the 12th to 14th centuries. In 1541, Doña Ana de la Cerda, the grandmother of the Princess of Eboli († 1592), acquired the place and its surroundings; these remained under the manorial rule (señorio) of the Duchy of El Infantado and thus of the House of Mendoza until the beginning of the 19th century.

Attractions

The originally late Romanesque Iglesia de San Pedro , which was significantly enlarged in the 15th century, is dedicated to the Apostle Peter . It has a four-arched bell gable (espadaña) above the choir arch ; two arches are slightly wider than the other two. The semicircular apse with a narrow central window is stabilized by columns with accompanying services . There are several consoles under the eaves that are reminiscent of beam ends. The south portal of the church is much more elaborate than the unadorned west portal.

A replica of a court column (rollo or picota) , which replaced an older one that was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), stands on a stepped base in the square in front of the church .

On the outskirts there is a well with an attached basin.