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119-717: It is a landlocked region largely occupying the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula 's Inner Plateau , including large parts of the catchment areas of the Tagus , the Guadiana and the Júcar , while the northeastern relief comprises the Sistema Ibérico mountain massif. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's regions, with Albacete , Guadalajara , Toledo , Talavera de la Reina and Ciudad Real being

238-409: A Mediterranean climate with a marked character of a continental climate . The continentalized Mediterranean climate is similar to a typical Mediterranean climate , but with more extreme temperatures typical of a continental climate. Lack of a marine influence leads to much more extreme temperatures: hotter summers and quite cold winters, with a daily oscillation of 18.5 °C (33.3 °F). Summer

357-576: A brief period in the 1330s and 1340s, Castile tended to be nonetheless "essentially unstable" from a political standpoint until the late 15th century. Merchants from Genoa and Pisa were conducting an intense trading activity in Catalonia already by the 12th century, and later in Portugal. Since the 13th century, the Crown of Aragon expanded overseas; led by Catalans , it attained an overseas empire in

476-599: A permanent trading port in the Gadir colony c.  800 BCE in response to the increasing demand of silver from the Assyrian Empire . The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over several centuries. In the 8th century BCE, the first Greek colonies , such as Emporion (modern Empúries ), were founded along

595-568: A population of 100,000 by the 10th century, Toledo 30,000 by the 11th century and Seville 80,000 by the 12th century. During the Middle Ages, the North of the peninsula housed many small Christian polities including the Kingdom of Castile , the Kingdom of Aragon , the Kingdom of Navarre , the Kingdom of León or the Kingdom of Portugal , as well as a number of counties that spawned from

714-725: A population of roughly 53 million, it is the second-largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula . The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the River Ebro (Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin ). The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that

833-637: A role in the conflict by providing key naval support to France that helped lead to that nation's eventual victory. After the accession of Henry III to the throne of Castile, the populace, exasperated by the preponderance of Jewish influence, perpetrated a massacre of Jews at Toledo. In 1391, mobs went from town to town throughout Castile and Aragon, killing an estimated 50,000 Jews, or even as many as 100,000, according to Jane Gerber . Women and children were sold as slaves to Muslims, and many synagogues were converted into churches. According to Hasdai Crescas , about 70 Jewish communities were destroyed. During

952-573: A sudden economic cessation. Many settlements in northern Castile and Catalonia were left forsaken. The plague marked the start of the hostility and downright violence towards religious minorities (particularly the Jews) as an additional consequence in the Iberian realms. The 14th century was a period of great upheaval in the Iberian realms. After the death of Peter the Cruel of Castile (reigned 1350–69),

1071-535: A typical Mediterranean climate. Precipitation presents a notable gradient from the center of the region, where it does not surpass 400 millimetres (16 in) per year, to the mountains where it can exceed 1,000 millimetres (39 in) per year, on the slopes of the Sierra de Gredos and the Serranía de Cuenca . The greater part of the region has less than 600 millimetres (24 in) of rain annually. The driest part of

1190-660: Is based on the flag of the region, and not the other way around, as is more typical in heraldry. Article 1 of the law 1/1983 describes it as follows: Some institutions of the region have adopted this coat of arms as part of their own emblem, among these the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha, the Consultative Council and the University of Castilla–La Mancha . Although Article 5 of the Statute of Autonomy indicates that

1309-537: Is divided into five principal watersheds . The Tagus , Guadiana , and Guadalquivir drain into the Atlantic Ocean and the Júcar and Segura into the Mediterranean Sea . The Tagus provides water for some 587,000 inhabitants in a watershed of 26,699 square kilometres (10,309 sq mi). It includes the entire province of Guadalajara and the greater part of the province of Toledo, including

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1428-725: Is located in the middle of the Iberian peninsula , occupying the greater part of the Submeseta Sur, the vast plain composing the southern part of the Meseta Central . The Submeseta Sur (and the autonomous community) is separated from the Submeseta Norte (and the community of Castilla y León ) by the mountain range known as the Sistema Central . Despite this, the region has no shortage of mountain landscapes:

1547-406: Is polycentric, with no dominant central city. Insofar the largest municipality (Albacete) is located in the peripheral southeast, Madrid (outside the region), exerts influence over the extension of the so-called Corredor del Henares  [ es ] into the province of Guadalajara (including the provincial capital) as well as the north of the province of Toledo. The rest of urban centres lie on

1666-621: Is testimony to a considerable input from various waves of (predominantly male) Western Steppe Herders from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the Bronze Age. Iberia experienced a significant genetic turnover, with 100% of the paternal ancestry and 40% of the overall ancestry being replaced by peoples with steppe-related ancestry. In the Chalcolithic ( c.  3000 BCE), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to

1785-797: Is the Palace of Fuensalida in Toledo. Large parts of the region are experiencing a demographic decline. In contrast, besides the provincial capitals, two specific areas bordering the Madrid region associated to the Madrid metropolitan area have experienced a population growth well above the national average: La Sagra (around the A-42 highway) and the Henares Corridor (around the A-2 ). Overall, as of 2016,

1904-479: Is the Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha established the flag of Castilla–La Mancha and the law 1/1983 (30 June 1983) established the coat of arms. Seven different designs for a flag were proposed during the era of the "pre-autonomous" region. The selected design was that of heraldist Ramón José Maldonado. This was made official in Article 5 of the Statute of Autonomy: The coat of arms of Castilla–La Mancha

2023-429: Is the driest season, with temperatures often exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), sometimes reaching and exceeding 35 °C (95 °F). In winter, temperatures often drop below 0 °C (32 °F), producing frosts on clear nights, and occasional snow on cloudy nights. Castilla–La Mancha is part of what has traditionally been called España Seca ("Dry Spain"). It receives relatively scarce precipitation , much as in

2142-725: Is the ridge of the Sierra Morena, the southern border of the Meseta Central and the region's border with Andalusia . Within the Sierra Morena, distinction can be made between the Sierra Madrona , Sierra de Alcudia and Sierra de San Andrés . At the other southern extreme of Castilla–La Mancha, the Sierra de Alcaraz and Sierra del Segura form part of the Sistema Bético . The territory of Castilla–La Mancha

2261-677: The Ṣaqāliba (literally meaning "slavs", although they were slaves of generic European origin) as well as Sudanese slaves. The Umayyad rulers faced a major Berber Revolt in the early 740s; the uprising originally broke out in North Africa (Tangier) and later spread across the peninsula. Following the Abbasid takeover from the Umayyads and the shift of the economic centre of the Islamic Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad,

2380-682: The Alberche and the Tagus, rising up to its maximum heights at the summits of Cruces (1373 m), Pelados (1331 m) and San Vicente (1321 m). On the northwest is the Sistema Ibérico , where there is important fluvial and especially karstic activity, which has given rise to such landscapes as the Ciudad Encantada , the Callejones de Las Majadas and the Hoces del Cabriel . In the southeast

2499-711: The Aurignacian , Gravettian , Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of them characterized by the complex forms of the art of the Upper Paleolithic . During the Neolithic expansion , various megalithic cultures developed in the Iberian Peninsula. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture , also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of

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2618-652: The Early Neolithic . The natural region of La Mancha presents a number of archaeological sites related to the so-called Culture of Las Motillas of the Bronze Age , tentatively considered as the earliest reported case of human culture in Western Europe able to implement a system of underground water collection, whose installment is possibly connected to the surface water crisis caused by the 4.2 kiloyear event . A number of these Bronze Age settlements,

2737-720: The Ebro ) as far north as the Rhône , but in his day they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar , with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia." According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia (Greek: Iberia ) as synonyms. The confusion of

2856-614: The House of Trastámara succeeded to the throne in the person of Peter's half brother, Henry II (reigned 1369–79). In the kingdom of Aragón, following the death without heirs of John I (reigned 1387–96) and Martin I (reigned 1396–1410), a prince of the House of Trastámara, Ferdinand I (reigned 1412–16), succeeded to the Aragonese throne. The Hundred Years' War also spilled over into the Iberian peninsula, with Castile particularly taking

2975-585: The NUTS-2 region of Castilla–La Mancha featured an average index of demographic vulnerability of 30, similar to those of the European regions of Upper Palatinate (Germany), Styria (Austria), Catalonia (Spain), Overijssel (Netherlands) and Campania (Italy). According to the official 11 January 2008 data of the INE Castilla–La Mancha has 2,043,100 inhabitants in its five provinces. Despite being

3094-798: The Phoenician alphabet and originated in Southwestern Iberia by the 7th century BCE has been tentatively proposed. In the sixth century BCE, the Carthaginians arrived in the peninsula while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (modern-day Cartagena, Spain ). In 218 BCE, during the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians,

3213-602: The Phoenicians , by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean . Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia , which he wrote about c.  500 BCE . Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with [...] Iberia." According to Strabo , prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος ( Ibēros ,

3332-677: The Segura catchment area . The Upper Acheulean sites are mostly located within the limits of the current-day province of Ciudad Real, substantially increasing in number and territorial spread across the region for the ensuing Middle Paleolithic . The Upper Paleolithic in the region presents instances of the art of the Upper Paleolithic in the Serranía del Alto Tajo and the Upper Júcar . There are instances of Cardium pottery in Caudete from

3451-457: The Sistema Central , among which can be distinguished the mountain ranges Pela, Ayllón , Somosierra, Barahona and Ministra, with the headwaters of the rivers Jarama , Cañamares and Henares . The Sistema Central also penetrates the northwest of the province of Toledo: a southwest to northeast sub-range known as the Sierra de San Vicente , bordered on the north by the Tiétar and on the south by

3570-688: The Spanish Constitution of 1978 , the Statute of Autonomy, and the laws of the nation and region. The Council of Government consists of the president, vice presidents (if any) and the Councilors. The President of the Junta directs the Council of Government and coordinates the functions of its members. The president is elected by the Cortes from among its members, then formally named by the monarch of Spain . The president's official residence

3689-803: The Strait of Gibraltar and founded upon a vassalage relationship with the Crown of Castile, also insinuated itself into the European mercantile network, with its ports fostering intense trading relations with the Genoese as well, but also with the Catalans, and to a lesser extent, with the Venetians, the Florentines, and the Portuguese. Between 1275 and 1340, Granada became involved in the "crisis of

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3808-446: The Tagus-Segura Water Transfer has caused a severe social-economic impact on the region, with the water resources available in the Tagus headwaters decreasing by about a 47.5% after 1980. ... Castilla–La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities. The following category includes: According to the official data of the INE , Castilla–La Mancha consists of 919 municipalities, which amount to 11.3 percent of all

3927-431: The motillas , were built over Chalcolithic settlements. During the Iron Age II (La Tène culture) , the territory occupied by the current provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete had a larger influence from Punic - Phoenician and Greek colonists, while the territory occupied by the current provinces of Toledo, Guadalajara and Cuenca was more influenced by the substrate of the earlier Atlantic Bronze , helping to line up

4046-410: The secret ballot . They are elected for a term of four years under a proportional system intended to guarantee representation to the various territorial zones of Castilla–La Mancha. The electoral constituency is at the level of each province , with provinces being assigned the following number of deputies as of 2023: Albacete, 7; Ciudad Real, 7; Cuenca, 5; Guadalajara, 5; and Toledo, 9. Article 10 of

4165-419: The (southern) Guadiana drainage basins. The most outstanding peaks of this modest mountain range include La Villuerca (1,601 meters (5,253 ft)) and Rocigalgo (1,447 meters (4,747 ft)). In contrast, a more mountainous zone surrounds the Meseta and serves as the region's natural border. In the north of the Province of Guadalajara , bordering Madrid and Segovia , is a mountain range forming part of

4284-428: The 15th century, Portugal, which had ended its southwards territorial expansion across the Iberian Peninsula in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve, initiated an overseas expansion in parallel to the rise of the House of Aviz , conquering Ceuta (1415) arriving at Porto Santo (1418), Madeira and the Azores , as well as establishing additional outposts along the North-African Atlantic coast. In addition, already in

4403-475: The 18th century included the Real Fábrica de Paños in Guadalajara, the Real Fábrica de Sedas  [ es ] in Talavera de la Reina, or the Real Fábrica de Paños  [ es ] in Brihuega . The current provincial configuration roughly dates from the 1833 division by Javier de Burgos , establishing the outline of the modern provinces of Albacete , Ciudad Real , Cuenca , Guadalajara and Toledo , bar relatively minor later adjustments. Albacete

4522-607: The Carolingian Marca Hispanica . Christian and Muslim polities fought and allied among themselves in variable alliances. The Christian kingdoms progressively expanded south taking over Muslim territory in what is historiographically known as the " Reconquista " (the latter concept has been however noted as product of the claim to a pre-existing Spanish Catholic nation and it would not necessarily convey adequately "the complexity of centuries of warring and other more peaceable interactions between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in medieval Iberia between 711 and 1492"). The Caliphate of Córdoba

4641-413: The Castillian-Manchegan territory and 36.6 percent of total of the Júcar watershed. It includes the eastern parts of the provinces of Cuenca and Albacete, including their respective capitals. Finally, the 34 municipalities of southeastern Albacete fall in the Segura watershed, with an extent of 4,713 square kilometres (1,820 sq mi). Castilla–La Mancha has a continentalized Mediterranean climate :

4760-407: The Celtiberian settlements were characterised instead by the somewhat smaller castros . In the 2nd century BC, by the time of the advent of the Roman conquest wars, the first actual cities had begun to grow in the inner plateau. The Roman conquest brought substantial transformations to the Carpetani urban settlements, including the social division between slaves and freemen, the monetary economy,

4879-445: The Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares, the Argaric culture flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC, when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy. The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion, with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by

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4998-412: The Christian Iberian kingdoms by the beginning of the 13th century, in relation to the more or less conflictual border with Muslim lands. By the beginning of the 13th century, a power reorientation took place in the Iberian Peninsula (parallel to the Christian expansion in Southern Iberia and the increasing commercial impetus of Christian powers across the Mediterranean) and to a large extent, trade-wise,

5117-410: The Early Modern Period, between the completion of the Granada War in 1492 and the death of Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Hispanic Monarchy would make strides in the imperial expansion along the Mediterranean coast of the Maghreb. During the Late Middle Ages, the Jews acquired considerable power and influence in Castile and Aragon. Throughout the late Middle Ages, the Crown of Aragon took part in

5236-423: The European landmass by the Pyrenees , it includes the territories of Peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal , comprising most of the region, as well as the tiny adjuncts of Andorra , Gibraltar , and, pursuant to the traditional definition of the Pyrenees as the peninsula's northeastern boundary, a small part of France . With an area of approximately 583,254 square kilometres (225,196 sq mi), and

5355-548: The Greeks had called "the whole of the peninsula" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River. The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BCE between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian , uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr , apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination. The early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from

5474-400: The Hispano-Roman population took place, ( muwalladum or Muladí ). After a long process, spurred on in the 9th and 10th centuries, the majority of the population in Al-Andalus eventually converted to Islam. The Muslims were referred to by the generic name Moors . The Muslim population was divided per ethnicity (Arabs, Berbers, Muladí), and the supremacy of Arabs over the rest of group

5593-474: The Iberian Peninsula reorientated towards the North away from the Muslim World. During the Middle Ages, the monarchs of Castile and León, from Alfonso V and Alfonso VI (crowned Hispaniae Imperator ) to Alfonso X and Alfonso XI tended to embrace an imperial ideal based on a dual Christian and Jewish ideology. Despite the hegemonic ambitions of its rulers and the consolidation of the union of Castile and León after 1230, it should be pointed that, except for

5712-410: The Islamic army landed at Gibraltar and, in an eight-year campaign, occupied all except the northern kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania . Al-Andalus ( Arabic : الإندلس , tr. al-ʾAndalūs , possibly "Land of the Vandals"), is the Arabic name given to Muslim Iberia. The Muslim conquerors were Arabs and Berbers ; following the conquest, conversion and arabization of

5831-416: The Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. Together with the presence of Phoenician and Greek epigraphy, several paleohispanic scripts developed in the Iberian Peninsula along the 1st millennium BCE. The development of a primordial paleohispanic script antecessor to the rest of paleohispanic scripts (originally supposed to be a non-redundant semi-syllabary ) derived from

5950-557: The Mediterranean during Classical Antiquity having no match until the Industrial Revolution . In addition to mineral extraction (of which the region was the leading supplier in the early Roman world, with production of the likes of gold, silver, copper, lead, and cinnabar ), Hispania also produced manufactured goods ( sigillata pottery, colourless glass , linen garments) fish and fish sauce ( garum ), dry crops (such as wheat and, more importantly, esparto ), olive oil , and wine . The process of Romanization spurred on throughout

6069-425: The Middle March had eminently a military nature, both shielding the core of Al-Andalus from the raids of the Northern Christian polities as well as serving as staging ground for Muslim offensive campaigns against the former. Berber clans such as the Masmuda Banu-Salim (linked to the founders of Guadalajara ) or the Hawwara Banu Zennun (based in the Kura of Santover  [ es ] ) had an important role in

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6188-470: The Muslim settlement of parts of the Middle March. The city of Toledo stood distinctly unruly towards the Cordobese authorities, and remained a major city of al-Andalus, preserving quite of its former importance and hosting a leading cultural centre that lasted even after the Christian conquest. As consequence of the fitna of al-Andalus in the early 11th century, an independent polity with its center in Toledo (the Taifa of Toledo ), emerged, roughly occupying

6307-431: The Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France , this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 30,000 BP, when Neanderthal man faced extinction. About 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula from across the Pyrenees. On the Iberian Peninsula, modern humans developed a series of different cultures, such as

6426-444: The Sistema Central. Throughout the 18th century, following the War of Spanish Succession , the Spanish Bourbon monarchs sought to equilibrate the commercial balance with the exterior carrying out an economic policy that tried to foster industrial capacity through economic interventionism . The State shall either stimulate the capacity of private capital or simply provide the capital itself. Examples of royal manufactures created in

6545-503: The Spanish regional elections of 2023 , the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha has consisted of 17 deputies from social democratic PSOE , 12 from conservative People's Party and 4 from far right Vox . The Cortes sits in the former Franciscan convent in Toledo, the Edificio de San Gil ("San Gil building"). The Council of Government is the collegial executive organ of the region. It directs regional political and administrative action, exercises an executive function and regulatory powers under

6664-446: The Statute of Autonomy states that elections will be convoked by the President of the Junta of Communities, following the General Electoral Regime ( Régimen Electoral General ), on the fourth Sunday in May every four years. This stands in contrast to the autonomous communities of the Basque Country , Catalonia , Galicia , Andalusia and the Valencian Community where the president has the power to convoke elections at any time. Since

6783-425: The Statute of Autonomy states that the powers of the region are exercised through the Junta of Communities of Castilla–La Mancha ( Junta de Comunidades de Castilla–La Mancha ). Organs of the Junta are the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha , the President of the Junta and the Council of Government. The Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha represent the popular will through 33 deputies elected by universal adult suffrage through

6902-437: The Strait", and was caught in a complex geopolitical struggle ("a kaleidoscope of alliances") with multiple powers vying for dominance of the Western Mediterranean, complicated by the unstable relations of Muslim Granada with the Marinid Sultanate . The conflict reached a climax in the 1340 Battle of Río Salado , when, this time in alliance with Granada, the Marinid Sultan (and Caliph pretender) Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman made

7021-431: The Suebi kingdom and its capital city, Bracara (modern day Braga ), in 584–585. They would also occupy the province of the Byzantine Empire (552–624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula . However, Balearic Islands remained in Byzantine hands until Umayyad conquest, which began in 703 CE and was completed in 902 CE. In 711, a Muslim army conquered the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania . Under Tariq ibn Ziyad ,

7140-405: The Tagus constrained the colonisation process undertaken by the new Castilian rulers. This underpinned the features of a sparse population in the region; as a result, ranching became a mainstay of the economy, which later led to the leading role of the military orders . The latter controlled over 20,000 km in the region of " La Mancha ", managed from just 25 castles. The weak Christian grip over

7259-491: The Western Mediterranean, with a presence in Mediterranean islands such as the Balearics , Sicily and Sardinia , and even conquering Naples in the mid-15th century. Genoese merchants invested heavily in the Iberian commercial enterprise with Lisbon becoming, according to Virgínia Rau , the "great centre of Genoese trade" in the early 14th century. The Portuguese would later detach their trade to some extent from Genoese influence. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada , neighbouring

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7378-420: The aftermath of the conquest increased mining extractive processes in the southwest of the peninsula (which required a massive number of forced laborers, initially from Hispania and latter also from the Gallic borderlands and other locations of the Mediterranean), bringing in a far-reaching environmental outcome vis-à-vis long-term global pollution records, with levels of atmospheric pollution from mining across

7497-449: The ascension of the Trastámaras , the territory of the current-day province of Toledo underwent a process of seigneuralization, and a number of non-religious lordships were progressively created in the area. The 15th century also brought a growing importance of the political elites belonging to towns of the southern meseta in the affairs of the Crown of Castile relative to the prior uncontested preponderance of those elites from towns north of

7616-419: The central plains (with for example, the presence of intermediate agro-cities in La Mancha), contrasting with the sparsedly populated mountains and other peripheral areas. The Meseta is the dominant landscape unit of a great part of the territory of Castilla–La Mancha: a vast, uniform plain with little relief. The west-to-east Montes de Toledo range cuts across the meseta separating the (northern) Tagus and

7735-451: The city of Reccopolis by Visigoths in the late 6th century was a singular development in the context of the European Early Middle Ages . Following the 8th century Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula , just after the 741 Berber Revolt , the so-called Middle March of Al-Andalus ( al-Ťāğr al-Awsat ) was created as territorial sub-division, existing for the rest of the ensuing emiral and caliphal period of Al-Andalus. During this era,

7854-420: The conditions of the "pre-autonomous regime" of the "Castilian-Manchegan region". A joint assembly of legislators and provincial deputies of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Toledo was established in Manzanares in 1981 to draft the early sketch of the regional statute. On 17 June 1982, the Congress of Deputies approved the final text of the regional statute (an organic law ), which

7973-432: The country. Seeking to curb immigration to the Spanish capital, the so-called Madrid Decongestion Plan of 1959 created planned industrial estates in Alcázar de San Juan, Manzanares, Guadalajara, and Toledo. The plan did not yield the expected results as Madrid kept growing and the industrial zones eventually stagnated. Under the auspices of the 1978 Constitution , a decree-law was issued on 15 November 1978, establishing

8092-469: The culture of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar . During the Early Bronze Age, southeastern Iberia saw the emergence of important settlements, a development that has compelled some archeologists to propose that these settlements indicate the advent of state-level social structures. From this centre, bronze metalworking technology spread to other cultures like the Bronze of Levante , South-Western Iberian Bronze and Las Cogotas . Preceded by

8211-407: The delineation of Iberia from Gaul ( Keltikē ) by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") from there. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the consolidation of Romance languages , the word "Iberia" continued the Roman word Hiberia and the Greek word Ἰβηρία . The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from

8330-410: The diffuse separation of two large groups of pre-Roman peoples (" Iberi " and " Celtiberi "). Iberian-related peoples dwelling the southern rim of the inner plateau such as the Oretani and Contestani were organised in tribes ruled by a kinglet or chieftain, each one controlling a number of settlements. The main cog of the Iberian form of settlement was the oppidum . From the 7th century BC onward,

8449-442: The early fifth century, Germanic peoples occupied the peninsula, namely the Suebi , the Vandals ( Silingi and Hasdingi ) and their allies, the Alans . Only the kingdom of the Suebi ( Quadi and Marcomanni ) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths , who occupied all of the Iberian Peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually occupied

8568-780: The feebleness of the taifa principalities, Ferdinand I of León seized Lamego and Viseu (1057–1058) and Coimbra (1064) away from the Taifa of Badajoz (at times at war with the Taifa of Seville ); Meanwhile, in the same year Coimbra was conquered, in the Northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, the Kingdom of Aragon took Barbastro from the Hudid Taifa of Lérida as part of an international expedition sanctioned by Pope Alexander II. Most critically, Alfonso VI of León-Castile conquered Toledo and its wider taifa in 1085, in what it

8687-634: The first Roman troops occupied the Iberian Peninsula, known to them as Hispania . After 197, the territories of the peninsula most accustomed to external contact and with the most urban tradition (the Mediterranean Coast and the Guadalquivir Valley) were divided by Romans into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior . Local rebellions were quelled, with a 195 Roman campaign under Cato the Elder ravaging hotspots of resistance in

8806-618: The first century BC. The peninsula was also the battleground of civil wars between rulers of the Roman republic; such as the Sertorian War , and the conflict between Caesar and Pompey later in the century. During their 600-year occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the Romans introduced the Latin language that influenced many of the languages that exist today in the Iberian peninsula. In

8925-444: The former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for 'near' and 'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces : Hispania Baetica , Hispania Tarraconensis , and Hispania Lusitania . Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. (The name Iberia

9044-464: The fostering of manufacture and trade or the new Roman acculturation . The territory of the current region was mining-rich in Antiquity, with mentions in classical sources to the mining of cinnabar from Sisapo  [ es ] , silver, gold and other minerals such as selenite from Segobriga and the laminitana sharpening stone . Built from scratch on state initiative, the founding of

9163-639: The inhabitants of the territory with the environment. By the Iron Age , starting in the 8th century BCE, the Iberian Peninsula consisted of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Celtiberians , Gallaeci , Astures , Celtici , Lusitanians and others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones and the cultures of the Aquitanian in

9282-427: The larger hilltop settlements, and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population. Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse. The culture of the motillas developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called motillas ) in the upper Guadiana basin (in

9401-466: The largest cities. Castilla–La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León , Madrid , Aragon , Valencia , Murcia , Andalusia , and Extremadura . Prior to its establishment as an autonomous community, its territory was part of the New Castile ( Castilla la Nueva ) region along with the province of Madrid, except for Albacete province, which was part of the former Murcia region. Castilla–La Mancha

9520-736: The largest slave centre in Western Europe) since the mid 15th century, with Seville becoming another key hub for the slave trade. Following the advance in the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, the seizure of Málaga entailed the addition of another notable slave centre for the Crown of Castile. Alberche The Alberche is a river in the provinces of Ávila , Madrid and Toledo , central Spain . It begins its course at 1,800 m in Fuente Alberche, San Martín de la Vega del Alberche municipal term, Ávila Province. It forms

9639-429: The last Marinid attempt to set up a power base in the Iberian Peninsula. The lasting consequences of the resounding Muslim defeat to an alliance of Castile and Portugal with naval support from Aragon and Genoa ensured Christian supremacy over the Iberian Peninsula and the preeminence of Christian fleets in the Western Mediterranean. The 1348–1350 bubonic plague devastated large parts of the Iberian Peninsula, leading to

9758-463: The meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. In modern Basque , the word ibar means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai means "river", but there is no proof connecting the names with Ebro or Iberia . The word Iberia comes from the Latin word Hiberia originating from the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία ( Ibēríā ), used by Greek geographers under

9877-453: The mediterranean slave trade, with Barcelona (already in the 14th century), Valencia (particularly in the 15th century) and, to a lesser extent, Palma de Mallorca (since the 13th century), becoming dynamic centres in this regard, involving chiefly eastern and Muslim peoples. Castile engaged later in this economic activity, rather by adhering to the incipient atlantic slave trade involving sub-saharan people thrusted by Portugal (Lisbon being

9996-614: The mining district around Hiendelaencina after 1844. Large-scale mining of lead and zinc in San Quintín (province of Ciudad Real) ensued in between 1884 and 1934. The arrival of railway transport in the mid 19th-century subordinated the interests of the provinces to those of Madrid and the Levante , although it fostered the development of some urban centres such as those of Alcázar de San Juan , Manzanares and Albacete . The five provinces lost relative demographic weight relative to

10115-572: The municipalities in Spain. 496 of these have less than 500 inhabitants, 231 have between 501 and 2,000 inhabitants, 157 between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, and only 35 have more than 10,000 inhabitants. The municipalities in the north are small and numerous, while in the south they are larger and fewer. This reflects different histories of how these sub-regions were repopulated during the Reconquista . The Organic Law 9/1982 (August 10, 1982), which

10234-405: The national total over the course of the century. The territory of the current-day region was singularly affected by the desamortizaciones , particularly those of Mendizábal and Madoz. From 1836 to 1924 1,600,000 hectares (4,000,000 acres) of land were auctioned (1,100,000 hectares of municipal properties and the rest church's property). They were purchased by the political and economic elites of

10353-419: The natural division between the Sierra de Gredos and the Sierra de Guadarrama , in the Sistema Central . The Alberche flows roughly from NW to SE and bends sharply midway in its course to flow from NE to SW. It meets the Tagus a few kilometres east of Talavera de la Reina . This river has the following dams along its course: Burguillo , Charco del Cura , San Juan , Picadas, and Cazalegas. Alberche Beach

10472-561: The northeastern Ebro Valley and beyond. The threat to Roman interests posed by Celtiberians and Lusitanians in uncontrolled territories lingered in. Further wars of indigenous resistance, such as the Celtiberian Wars and the Lusitanian War , were fought in the 2nd century. Urban growth took place, and population progressively moved from hillforts to the plains. An example of the interaction of slaving and ecocide ,

10591-570: The peninsula in 1146. Somewhat straying from the trend taking place in other locations of the Latin West since the 10th century, the period comprising the 11th and 13th centuries was not one of weakening monarchical power in the Christian kingdoms. The relatively novel concept of "frontier" (Sp: frontera ), already reported in Aragon by the second half of the 11th century become widespread in

10710-726: The peninsula's first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic , Middle East and North Africa . Around 2800 – 2700 BCE, the Beaker culture , which produced the Maritime Bell Beaker , probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus estuary and spread from there to many parts of western Europe. The Bronze Age began on the Iberian Peninsula in 2100 cal. BC according to radiocarbon datings of several key sites. Bronze Age cultures developed beginning c.  1800 BCE, when

10829-479: The peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BCE. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization . As is the case for most of the rest of Southern Europe, the principal ancestral origin of modern Iberians are Early European Farmers who arrived during the Neolithic. The large predominance of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b, common throughout Western Europe ,

10948-617: The predatory practices in the monte  [ es ] by the golfines, whose presence in the Montes de Toledo was further obliterated by the creation of the so-called hermandades viejas by councils at Toledo, Talavera or Villa Real in the dawn of the 14th century. Despite a poorly representative degree of permeability, urban oligarchies in the current-day region during the Late Middle Ages were largely perpetuated by means of lineage, through inheritance and marriage. Following

11067-513: The present southern Spain to the present southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed " Iberian ". Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence near the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown,

11186-493: The provinces of Albacete, Cuenca and Ciudad Real, and the audiencia of Madrid managing the provinces of Toledo and Guadalajara (and that of Madrid). The aforementioned modifications to the 1833 division include the party of Villena (lost by Albacete to Alicante in 1836), Requena (lost by Cuenca to Valencia in 1851), Villarrobledo (lost by Ciudad Real to Albacete c.  1846 ) or Valdeavero (lost by Guadalajara to Madrid in 1850). The provincial government institution

11305-738: The region is along the Albacete- Hellín axis, with less than 360 millimetres (14 in) per year. The Pinedo site  [ es ] presents material linked to the transition from earlier settlers to the Early Acheulean . Archaeological sites related to the Middle Acheulean in the current-day region lie on the Campo de Calatrava as well as in the source of the Villanueva river, the Guadiana catchment area and

11424-520: The region will have its own anthem, after more than 25 years no such anthem has been adopted. Among the proposed anthems have been the "Canción del Sembrador" ("Song of the Sower") from the zarzuela La rosa del azafrán by Jacinto Guerrero , the "Canto a la Mancha" ("Song of La Mancha") by Tomás Barrera, and many others, such as one presented by a group of citizens from Villarrobledo with the title "Patria sin fin" ("Fatherland without end"). Article 8 of

11543-573: The remaining taifas. The Almoravids in the Iberian peninsula progressively relaxed strict observance of their faith, and treated both Jews and Mozarabs harshly, facing uprisings across the peninsula, initially in the Western part. The Almohads , another North-African Muslim sect of Masmuda Berber origin who had previously undermined the Almoravid rule south of the Strait of Gibraltar, first entered

11662-571: The rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single geographical entity or a distinct population; the same name was used for the Kingdom of Iberia , natively known as Kartli in the Caucasus , the core region of what would later become the Kingdom of Georgia . It was Strabo who first reported

11781-463: The southern meseta ) in a context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the 4.2-kiloyear climatic event , which roughly coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the motillas (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of

11900-469: The southern slopes of the aforementioned Sistema Central in the north, the Sistema Ibérico in the northeast, and the Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo in the south. Castilla–La Mancha is the third largest of Spain's autonomous regions, with a surface area of 79,463 square kilometres (30,681 sq mi), representing 15.7 percent of Spain's national territory. The regional urban structure

12019-684: The species Homo erectus , Homo heidelbergensis , or a new species called Homo antecessor . Around 200,000 BP , during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic ,

12138-562: The terms 'Spanish Peninsula' or 'Pyrenaean Peninsula'. The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited by members of the Homo genus for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites in the Atapuerca Mountains demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina , where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to

12257-632: The territory collapsed after their crushing defeat from the Almohads in Alarcos (1195). Christian control south of the Tagus would only start to consolidate after the 1212 battle of Las Navas . The weak settlement and insecurity also allowed for countryside banditry (the so-called golfines ) in the area of the Montes de Toledo until its progressive quelling, already effective by the late 13th century. By that time, rural beekeepers self-organised to repel

12376-423: The territory of the current-day provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara and Cuenca (as well as that of Madrid), Following the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085, the ensuing unsuccessful attempts by North-African Almoravids and Almohads to take the city turned the territory of the inner plateau south of the Tagus subject to extreme warfare for about a century and a half. The military insecurity south of

12495-401: The third largest of Spains communities by surface area (after Castilla y León and Andalusia), it is only the ninth most populous. Castilla–La Mancha has just 4.4 percent of Spain's population. Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( IPA : / aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə n / ), also known as Iberia , is a peninsula in south-western Europe . Mostly separated from the rest of

12614-512: The time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania . In Greek and Roman antiquity, the name Hesperia was used for both the Italian and Iberian Peninsula; in the latter case Hesperia Ultima (referring to its position in the far west) appears as form of disambiguation from the former among Roman writers. Also since Roman antiquity, Jews gave the name Sepharad to the peninsula. As they became politically interested in

12733-463: The two largest cities of the latter province: the capital, Toledo, as well as Talavera de la Reina . The Guadiana watershed extends 26,646 square kilometres (10,288 sq mi) in Castilla–La Mancha, 37 percent of that river's entire watershed, with a population of 583,259 inhabitants. It includes the southern part of the province of Toledo, nearly all of the province of Ciudad Real (except

12852-532: The very south), the southwest of the province of Cuenca and the northwest of the province of Albacete. The Guadalquivir watershed extends over 5.2 percent of the surface area of the autonomous community, extending 4,100 square kilometres (1,600 sq mi) through the southern parts of the provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete, including such important population center as Puertollano . The Júcar watershed had, in 2006, 397,000 inhabitants in an area of 15,737 square kilometres (6,076 sq mi), 19.9 percent of

12971-554: The view of Jaime Vicens Vives , "the most powerful state in Europe". Abd-ar-Rahman III also managed to expand the clout of Al-Andalus across the Strait of Gibraltar, waging war, as well as his successor, against the Fatimid Empire . Between the 8th and 12th centuries, Al-Andalus enjoyed a notable urban vitality, both in terms of the growth of the preexisting cities as well as in terms of founding of new ones: Córdoba reached

13090-609: The western portion of the Pyrenees. As early as the 12th century BCE, the Phoenicians , a thalassocratic civilization originally from the Eastern Mediterranean, began to explore the coastline of the peninsula, interacting with the metal-rich communities in the southwest of the peninsula (contemporarily known as the semi-mythical Tartessos ). Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz ). Phoenicians established

13209-489: The western province of al-Andalus was marginalised and ultimately became politically autonomous as independent emirate in 756, ruled by one of the last surviving Umayyad royals, Abd al-Rahman I . Al-Andalus became a center of culture and learning, especially during the Caliphate of Córdoba . The Caliphate reached the height of its power under the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his successor al-Hakam II , becoming then, in

13328-678: The words was because of an overlapping in political and geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia , similar to the Greek Iberia , literally translates to "land of the Hiberians". This word was derived from the river Hiberus (now called Ebro or Ebre). Hiber (Iberian) was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BCE. Virgil wrote impacatos (H)iberos ("restless Iberi") in his Georgics . Roman geographers and other prose writers from

13447-794: Was a recurrent causal for strife, rivalry and hatred, particularly between Arabs and Berbers. Arab elites could be further divided in the Yemenites (first wave) and the Syrians (second wave). Christians and Jews were allowed to live as part of a stratified society under the dhimmah system , although Jews became very important in certain fields. Some Christians migrated to the Northern Christian kingdoms, while those who stayed in Al-Andalus progressively arabised and became known as musta'arab ( mozarabs ). The slave population comprised

13566-653: Was ambiguous, being also the name of the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus.) Whatever languages may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones , which was preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees. The modern phrase "Iberian Peninsula" was coined by the French geographer Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent on his 1823 work "Guide du Voyageur en Espagne" . Prior to that date, geographers had used

13685-485: Was later published on 16 August 1982, giving birth to the autonomous community of "Castilla-La Mancha". The constituent process of the autonomous community was sealed with the election of the first regional legislature in May 1983 and the ensuing investiture of José Bono as regional president. By December 1983 still less than half of citizens actually knew the autonomous community they belonged to. Since its opening in 1979

13804-456: Was part, together with Murcia of a wider region, whereas Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Toledo formed a region together with the Province of Madrid , "New Castile". The justice administration stood in between the national and provincial levels of government (also unaligned with the purported regional classification insofar Albacete is concerned), with the audiencia of Albacete managing

13923-544: Was seen as a critical event at the time, entailing also a huge territorial expansion, advancing from the Sistema Central to La Mancha . In 1086, following the siege of Zaragoza by Alfonso VI of León-Castile, the Almoravids , religious zealots originally from the deserts of the Maghreb, landed in the Iberian Peninsula, and, having inflicted a serious defeat to Alfonso VI at the battle of Zalaca , began to seize control of

14042-457: Was subsumed in a period of upheaval and civil war (the Fitna of al-Andalus ) and collapsed in the early 11th century, spawning a series of ephemeral statelets, the taifas . Until the mid 11th century, most of the territorial expansion southwards of the Kingdom of Asturias/León was carried out through a policy of agricultural colonization rather than through military operations; then, profiting from

14161-595: Was the provincial deputation . The agrarian capitalism favoured by the bourgeoisie in the 19th century enshrined an economy based on cereal commodities and the primary sector, favouring the leveling of the reduced industrial activity—chiefly textile—in the territory corresponding to the current-day region, whereas mining output—with sites such of the mercury deposits in Almadén or the coal deposits in Puertollano—remained below potential. A silver rush broke out in

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