Castile-La Mancha

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Comunidad Autónoma de Castilla-La Mancha
Flag of Castile-La Mancha Coat-of-arms of Castile-La Mancha
Flag Coat of arms
Map of Castile-La Mancha
Capital Toledo
Official languages Spanish
Area
 – Total
 – % of Spain		 Ranked 3rd
 79,463 km²
 15.7%
Population
 – Total (2005)
 – % of Spain
 – Density		 Ranked 9th
 1,987,667
 4.3%
 23.84/km²
Demonym
 – English
 – Spanish
 Castilian-Manchego
 Castellano-manchego/a
Statute of Autonomy
 August 16, 1982
 – Congress seats
 – Senate seats


 21 [1]
 20 + 2 [2]
President José María Barreda Fontes (PSOE)
ISO 3166-2 CM
www.jccm.es

Castile-La Mancha (Spanish "Castilla-La Mancha") is an autonomous community of Spain.

Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities.

The capital of Castile-La Mancha is Toledo.

Castile-La Mancha was formerly grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile ("Castilla la Nueva"), but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of semi-autonomous regions ("las autonomías"), it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces.

It is in this region where the famous Spanish novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes was written. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau ("manxa" means parched earth in Arabic; hence La Mancha is not definitively related to the Spanish word "mancha", or stain, which is derived from Latin "macula") it remains a symbol of the Spanish culture with its sunflowers, oliveyards, windmills, Manchego cheese and "Don Quijote".

Contents

[edit] History

The history of Castile-La Mancha has been significant. Its origin was founded during the Muslim period between the 8th and 14th century. Castile-La Mancha was the region of many historical battles between Christian crusaders and Muslim forces during the period of 1000 to the 14th centuries (until the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which aftermath assured the Castilian domination of the region with the decline of the Almohad Dynasty). It was also the region were the unification of Castile and Aragon in 1492 under Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand was created.

[edit] Region

Castile-La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities. The following category includes:

Other important towns in Castile-La Mancha (with more than 25 000 inhabitants) are:

Other towns in Castile-La Mancha (with less than 25 000 inhabitants) are:

Municipalites of Castile-La Mancha.
Municipalites of Castile-La Mancha.

[edit] References

  1. ^ 4 from province of Albacete, 5 from Ciudad Real, 3 from Cuenca, 3 from Guadalajara and 6 from Toledo.
  2. ^ 20 are directly elected by the people, each province forms a constituency and is granted 4 senators, and 2 regional legislature-appointed senators.

[edit] See also

v • d • e
Provinces of Castile-La Mancha
Provinces: Albacete · Ciudad Real · Cuenca · Guadalajara · Toledo
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v • d • e
Administrative divisions of Spain
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