Orba

Orba municipality
coat of arms	Map of Spain
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Valencia
Province :	Alicante
Comarca :	Marina Alta
Coordinates	38 ° 47 ′  N , 0 ° 4 ′  W Coordinates: 38 ° 47 ′  N , 0 ° 4 ′  W
Height :	154  msnm
Area :	17.70 km²
Residents :	2,174 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	122.82 inh / km²
Postal code :	03790
Municipality number  ( INE ):	03097
Nearest airport :	Alicante
administration
Official language :	Castilian , Valencian
Mayor :	Juan Ignacio Cervera Arbona ( Compromis ) (2015)
Website :	www.orba.es
Location of the municipality

Orba is a municipality in the province of Alicante in Spain .

geography

Orba is located around 15 km inland from the district capital Dénia across from Ibiza . The small river Girona crosses the municipality of Orba.

history

The origin of the place name allows for two theories. At one point it could have come from the Iberian language and originally read Ur-Obia . This should mean something like “place at the foot of a mountain where water rises”. On the other hand, the name could only be derived from the name of the Berber tribe of the Auraba much later . He had settled in this area since the beginning of the Moorish conquest of Spain in 711. Orba's economic development goes back to the Moorish era. In addition to agriculture, pottery and ceramics in particular have been able to maintain their position to this day. High above the town, on Monte de Adroberes, are the remains of the ruins of the Castillo d'Orba, which once also monitored access to the Vall de Laguart. The former castle dates from the 13th century, the year of the Reconquista , the reconquest of Spain by the Aragonese King James I. Orba's city coat of arms goes back to the heraldry of 1238.

However, Orba's population remained largely Moorish even after the Christian reconquest of Spain in 1492. At first, the Moors were needed primarily to provide food and maintain the complex irrigation system used in agriculture. In 1609 King Philip III. the order for the final expulsion of the Moriscos, who had meanwhile been forcibly baptized . Thousands of people, mostly women and children, who had fled to the mountains of the Vall de Laguart, were massacred there. More than 47,000 of them were shipped from the port of Dénia to Oran. This ended over 800 years of peaceful coexistence between Moors, Christians and Jews in this area.

This displacement led to the depopulation of the entire region. An economic disaster was the result. Only years later did resettlers from the neighboring Christian communities Murla and Pego as well as Mallorca bring life back to the valley. Today Orba with 2174 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) is a municipality in which about half of newcomers from all over Europe live.

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).