Santiuste de Pedraza

Municipality of Santiuste de Pedraza
	Santiuste de Pedraza - Church in the hamlet of Requijada
Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Castile and León
Province :	Segovia
Comarca :	Villa y Tierra de Pedrasa
Coordinates	41 ° 5 ′ N , 3 ° 53 ′ W Coordinates: 41 ° 5 ′ N , 3 ° 53 ′ W
Height :	1110 msnm
Area :	29.14 km²
Residents :	92 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density :	3.16 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	40171
Municipality number ( INE ):	40188
administration
Website :	Santiuste de Pedraza

Santiuste de Pedraza (sometimes just called La Mata ) is a place and a northern Spanish municipality ( municipio ) consisting of several hamlets (pedanías) and individual farms (fincas ) with a total of only 92 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) in the province of Segovia in the Autonomous Community of Castile and León .

Location and climate

The community, which consists of the hamlets of Chávida, La Mata de Santiuste, Requijada, Santiuste de Pedraza and Urbanos , is partly located on the Río Sordillo ; it is located about 27 to 32 km (driving distance) northeast of Segovia at an altitude of about 1110 m . The climate is harsh in winter, but temperate to warm in summer; Rain (approx. 525 mm / year) falls over the year.

Population development

year	1857	1900	1950	2000	2017
Residents	344	489	432	102	99

As a result of the increasing drought, the mechanization of agriculture and the resulting lower demand for labor, the number of inhabitants has declined sharply since the middle of the 20th century; there is also the abandonment of numerous small farms.

economy

Agriculture, especially dairy and pasture farming, played the most important role in the community's self - sufficient economic life for centuries . The improvement of the infrastructure in the 20th century led to a regionalization of the sales markets.

history

Little information is available on the history of the community; Celts , Romans , Visigoths and also the Arab-Moorish armies that penetrated far to the north in the 8th century have left no traces. In 1085 Alfonso VI conquered . the area back ( reconquista ) , which then of Christians from the north and south of the Iberian Peninsula was settled ( repoblación ) .

Attractions

Santiuste de Pedraza

Only ruins remain of the Romanesque church of San Justo y San Pastor , which burned down in 1930 .

Requijada

The three-aisled Romanesque hermit church (ermita) Nuestra Señora de las Vegas , built in the late 11th century and restored in 1969, stands a good 1.5 km east of the hamlet of Requijada . Its south porch (portico or galería porticada) , with its slightly asymmetrical design, corresponds to that of Sotosalbos and Duratón . The archivolts of the entrance portal, which is decorated with vegetal and abstract geometric reliefs (including a block frieze ), still have traces of paint from an older painting that also imitates geometric motifs. In the spandrels to the left and right of the archivolts stand the two figures of an Annunciation group . The three naves are covered by a wooden roof .