Olivenza

Olivenza
coat of arms	Map of Spain
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Extremadura
Province :	Badajoz
Comarca :	Llanos de Olivenza
Coordinates	38 ° 41 ′  N , 7 ° 6 ′  W Coordinates: 38 ° 41 ′  N , 7 ° 6 ′  W
Height :	269  msnm
Area :	430.1 km²
Residents :	11,963 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	27.81 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	E-06100
Municipality number  ( INE ):	06095
administration
Mayor :	Manuel Cayado Rodrígue ( PSOE )
Website :	www.ayuntamientodeolivenza.com
Location of the city
Badajoz Province

Olivenza ( Portuguese Olivença [oli'vẽsɐ]) is a Spanish city ​​in the province of Badajoz in the autonomous community of Extremadura . It is located on the Guadiana near the border with Portugal about 25 km from Badajoz and is the capital of the comarca Olivenza of the same name . Olivenza has 11,963 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) and an area of ​​430.1 km².

Portuguese in Olivenza

At the end of the 19th century, according to the linguist Leite de Vasconcelos, the city's residents were bilingual. In the more distant villages, however, only Portuguese was spoken. In the 1960s these too had become bilingual. Until the 1940s, the majority of the residents spoke the local Portuguese dialect. Today it is almost extinct.

Sovereignty

Oliveça on the map of Alto Alentejo and Alentejo Central ( Portugal ). The colored area includes the small community of Táliga, which has now been separated from Olivenza.

From the Treaty of Alcañices in 1297, in which Castile ceded Olivenza to Portugal, and until 1801, when it was occupied by Spanish troops during the Orange War , the area was under Portuguese suzerainty. In the same year it was ceded to Spain in the Treaty of Badajoz . Spain's position is that this treaty is still in force and Olivenza is de jure Spanish territory.

Portugal claims Olivenza de jure for itself, since the contract has become invalid due to the breach of an article laid down in it by Spain. This happened when Spain attacked Portugal in 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars . Portugal also invokes Article 105 of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which Spain had signed in 1817. It says that the victorious powers "strive to put Olivenza back under Portuguese sovereignty with the most powerful conciliatory endeavors". In other words, the borders between the two countries in the area around Olivenza should run as laid down in the Treaty of Alcañices in 1297. Spain interprets Article 105 as not mandatory with regard to the return of Olivenza to Portugal, so the Badajoz Peace remains authoritative.

Portugal never formally claimed Olivenza after the Congress of Vienna, but never recognized the Spanish claims either. The Guia de Portugal , published in the 1920s under the aegis of the republican publicist Raul Proença , describes the village as "now part of Spain, but Portuguese soil through its history".

Despite the obvious contradictions in international sovereignty over the so-called "Olivenza question", the issue does not cause any friction between the two Iberian states. The Portuguese Foreign Ministry contradicted the annual report of the US intelligence service CIA on peaceful sovereignty disputes in 2003, stating that the legal dispute had been "frozen" since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and that the two governments had no significant interest in changing the status quo .

The question is not relevant in everyday life for the collaboration and life of the residents in Extremadura and Alentejo. As in the rest of the largely populous and structurally weak Luso-Spanish border areas, unbureaucratic joint, cross-border cooperation between local politics and other authorities is common and administrative practice is very well functioning. Olivenza and the neighboring districts on the Spanish side of La Codosera, Alburquerque, Badajoz, and on the Portuguese side Arronches, Campo Maior, Estremoz, Portalegre and Elvas agreed in 2008 on the establishment of a future public-law municipal European region, ExtremAlentejo. There is public pressure on the part of the local communities, regions and associations on the respective overarching national policy to make tax funds available as quickly as possible.

There has been no investigation among the people of Olivenzas regarding their opinion on the matter, although the official website of the municipality strictly rejects the claims of Portugal. The Spanish public is largely unaware of the Portuguese claim to Olivenza - in stark contrast to the Spanish claim to Gibraltar or Morocco's claim to Ceuta , Melilla and the Plazas de soberanía .

On the other hand, awareness in Portugal of the claim has increased as a result of public relations work by interest groups.

sons and daughters of the town

• Pedro da Fonseca († 1422), Portuguese cardinal
• Paulo da Gama (1465–1499), Portuguese navigator, brother of Vasco da Gama
• Vicente Lusitano († after 1561), Portuguese composer and music theorist of the Renaissance
• Tomás Romero de Castilla (1833–1910), theologian, founder of the Archaeological Museum of Badajoz
• Ventura Ledesma Abrantes (1883–1956), founder of the association Grupo dos Amigos de Olivença (German: Friends of Olivenza)
• Guillermo Fernández Vara (* 1958), Spanish politician
• Jesús Perera (* 1980), Spanish football player

See also

• List of territorial disputes

Individual evidence

Castle in Olivenza

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. ↑ Guia de Portugal , Vol. 2, p. 450.
3. ↑ Martins da Cruz Afirma Que a Questão de Olivença "Está Congelada" , September 5th, 2003, on the website of the "Friends of Olivença" in the Alentejo homeland association "Casa do Alentejo" Lisbon (Portuguese).
4. ↑ Portugal desmiente a la CIA y niega que haya un conflicto por Olivenza ( Memento of July 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: El Periódico Extremadura , September 5, 2003 (Spanish).
5. ↑ Europacto en la frontera hispano-lusa ( Memento of July 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: El Periódico Extremadura , March 18, 2008 (Spanish).
6. ↑ convênio e Estatutos as "Euro-Região ExtremAlentejo" assinado em Campo Maior on the website of the Municipality of Estremoz (Portuguese), accessed on May 15, 2017th
7. ↑ Presentation of the political situation on the Olivenza website
8. ↑ "Grupo dos Amigos de Olivença" , accessed on May 15, 2017.
9. ↑ http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/2382/estjurid.htm

Web links

Commons : Olivenza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of Olivenza
• Official website of Badajoz, with subpage Olivenza