Villaseca de Henares

Villaseca de Henares municipality
Villaseca de Henares - town view
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Basic data
Autonomous Community :	Castile-La Mancha
Province :	Guadalajara
Comarca :	La Alcarria
Coordinates	40 ° 58 ′  N , 2 ° 48 ′  W Coordinates: 40 ° 58 ′  N , 2 ° 48 ′  W
Height :	855  msnm
Area :	17.17 km²
Residents :	27 (Jan. 1, 2019)
Population density :	1.57 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	19294
Municipality number  ( INE ):	19322
administration
Website :	Villaseca de Henares

Villaseca de Henares is a central Spanish town and municipality ( municipio ) with only 27 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) in the province of Guadalajara in the autonomous region of Castile-La Mancha . The municipality is located on the Camino del Cid and belongs to the sparsely populated region of the Serranía Celtibérica .

Location and climate

The approximately 855  m high village of Villaseca de Henares is located about 500 m north of the Río Dulce in the northeast of the Alcarria , a landscape in the north of the southern part of the Iberian plateau ( meseta ) . Guadalajara , the provincial capital, is approx. 60 km (driving distance) in a south-westerly direction; the worth seeing place Sigüenza is only a good 23 km northeast. The places Atienza (approx. 40 km north) and Jadraque (approx. 13 km south-west) are also noteworthy. The climate in winter is temperate, while in summer it is warm to hot; the rather low amounts of precipitation (approx. 440 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	421	391	1.010	72	27

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 ). In addition, the municipality of Matillas , located about 5 km to the west, was outsourced at the end of the 1950s.

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. At times, craftsmen and service providers were also based in the village.

history

Small finds were unearthed in the municipality, which are attributed to the Celtiberian tribe of Arevacians ; on the other hand, the Romans , Visigoths and even the Moors left no usable traces. 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 ) ; then the phase of new or resettlement ( repoblación ) began by Christians from many parts of the Iberian Peninsula . A written mention of the place name from the early Middle Ages is not known and so it is assumed that it originated in the 11th or 12th century. No later news is available.

Attractions

The small, single-nave Romanesque Iglesia de San Blas Obispo was built in the late 12th century; the two-arched bell gable (espadaña) rests on the otherwise unadorned west wall of the church. The nave (nature) and the apse are not curved, but are of wooden trusses spans. The entire apse is occupied by a richly decorated late Baroque altarpiece with Solomonic columns . In the north wall is the Renaissance tomb of Don Alonso de Carvajal and his wife.

literature

• Antonio García Martínez: Villaseca de Henares. Balcon del Rio Dulce. AACHR, Guadalajara 2008, ISBN 978-84-96885-35-6 .

Web links

Commons : Villaseca de Henares  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Villaseca de Henares - Photos (Flickr)

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).
2. ↑ Villaseca de Henares - Camino del Cid
3. ↑ Villaseca de Henares / Jadraque - climate tables
4. ↑ Villaseca de Henares - population development
5. ↑ Villaseca de Henares - Church