Pioz

Municipality of Pioz
	Pioz - castle (castillo)
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Castile-La Mancha
Province :	Guadalajara
Comarca :	La Alcarria
Coordinates	40 ° 28 ′ N , 3 ° 10 ′ W Coordinates: 40 ° 28 ′ N , 3 ° 10 ′ W
Height :	875 msnm
Area :	19.44 km²
Residents :	4,052 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	208.44 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	19162
Municipality number ( INE ):	19220
administration
Website :	Pioz

Pioz is a central Spanish town and a municipality ( municipio ) with a total of 4,052 inhabitants (as of January 1 2019) in the province of Guadalajara in the autonomous region of Castile-La Mancha . The municipality belonged to the sparsely populated region of the Serranía Celtibérica ; however, since the turn of the millennium, it has seen significant population growth.

Location and climate

The town of Pioz, which is almost 875 m high, is located in the north of the southern part of the Iberian Plateau ( meseta ) right on the border with the Autonomous Community of Madrid . The provincial capital Guadalajara is approx. 24 km (driving distance) to the south; the Spanish capital Madrid is about 60 km to the west. The climate in winter is temperate, while in summer it is warm to hot; the rather low amounts of precipitation (approx. 415 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	344	345	352	431	4,052

Despite the mechanization of agriculture , the abandonment of small farms and the resulting loss of jobs, the population of the municipality was largely stable until the end of the 20th century. However, the proximity to the greater Madrid area led to enormous population growth in the first decades of the 21st century.

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. Several small businesses have settled in a newly created industrial area (poligono industrial) .

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 Moors were conquered by the army of King Alfonso VI. driven out of the region by León ( reconquista ) . In the subsequent period of repopulation ( repoblación ) of the area by Christians from the north and south of the Iberian Peninsula , the place whose manorial rule (señorio) had been exercised since 1428 by Iñigo López de Mendoza , the Marques de Santillana and from 1458 in the hands of Pedro González de Mendoza († 1495), the cardinal and "Third King" (Tercer Rey) , from the House of Mendoza .

Attractions

Pioz - Iglesia de San Sebastián

The castle (castillo) was built in the second half of the 15th century by the last of the two Mendozas and his son Alvar Gómez. It is a four-tower building on a square floor plan with a surrounding kennel and a moat (foso) .
The Iglesia de San Sebastián was built in the 16th century as a single-nave church; however, during the construction period or shortly afterwards, a side aisle was added on the north side. The baroque-classical altarpiece with its twisted columns in the style of Churriguerism was created in the 17th or early 18th century. The unadorned baptismal font in a small chapel probably comes from the Romanesque predecessor church.