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Bierzo
El Bierzo (; ; gl, O Bierzo) is a ''comarca'' in the province of León, Spain. Its capital is the town of Ponferrada. Other major towns are Bembibre and Villafranca del Bierzo, the historical capital. The territory of El Bierzo includes most of the upper basin of the Sil river. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides, which makes this area remarkably isolated from all neighbouring lands. History In pre-Roman times the region was populated by the Astures, a Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian people. They were conquered by Emperor Augustus in the Astur-Cantabrian Wars (29–19 BC) and the area quickly became the largest mining center of the Empire during the Roman period, where gold and other metals and minerals were extracted. Numerous Roman mining sites are still visible in the area, one of the most spectacular being Las Médulas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Romans also imported grapevines, and wine production thrived in the region until the propagation o ...
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Villafranca Del Bierzo
250px, Castle of Villafranca. Villafranca del Bierzo is a village and municipality located in the comarca of El Bierzo, in the province of León, Castile and León, Spain. Villafranca del Bierzo lies 187 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela and is located between Ponferrada and O Cebreiro on the Way of St. James pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. History The first human settlements in the area date to the Neolithic age, while the first historically known people living here were the Celtiberians, who lived in ''Bergidum'', later known as ''Bergidum Flavium'' after the Roman conquest. In the Middle Ages, the town is first mentioned in 791. The origin of the modern town is connected to the Way of St. James, as a rest place for the pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela beginning in the 9th century. In the ''Codex Calixtinus'' Villafranca is mentioned as an intermediate stage between Rabornal and Triacastela. In 1070, during the reign of Alfonso VI of León, a ...
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Ponferrada
Ponferrada () is a city of Spain, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Ponferrada, the second most populated municipality of the Province of León, is also the capital city of El Bierzo, the only ''comarca'' recognized as an administrative entity by law in the region. Surrounded by mountains, the city straddles the course of the Sil River. It is the last major town on the French route of the Camino de Santiago before it reaches Santiago de Compostela. In 2021, it had a population of 63,747. Etymology Ponferrada comes from the Latin ''Pons Ferrata'', Iron Bridge. History In pre-Roman times the region was populated by the Astures, a Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian people. They were conquered by Emperor Augustus in the Astur-Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC) and the area quickly became the largest mining center of the Empire during the Roman period, where gold and other metals and minerals were extracted. Numerous Roman mining sites are still visible in the area, ...
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Province Of León
León (, , ; ; ) is a province of northwestern Spain in the northern part of the Region of León and in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. About one quarter of its population of 463,746 (2018) lives in the capital, León. The climate is dry, cold in winter and hot in summer. This creates the perfect environment for wine and all types of cold meats and sausages like the leonese “Morcilla” and the “Cecina”. There are two famous Roman Catholic cathedrals in the province, the main one in León and another in Astorga. The province shares the Picos de Europa National Park (in the Picos de Europa mountain range) with Cantabria and Asturias. It has 211 municipalities. History The province of León was established in 1833 with the new Spanish administrative organisation of regions and provinces to replace former kingdoms. The Leonese Region was composed of the provinces of León, Salamanca and Zamora. Until 1833, the independently administ ...
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Bembibre
Bembibre () is a municipality and a city located in the region of El Bierzo, province of León, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2014 census (INE), the municipality had a population of 9,631 inhabitants. The second largest urban settlement in the region of El Bierzo, it is considered as the capital of traditional shire called "Bierzo Alto". Two rivers crosses Bembibre: Boeza and Noceda. History The numerous remains of Cisastur fortifications (''castros'') found along the city's surroundings prove that man has inhabited these lands from ancient times. However, the origin of the current settlements goes back to the repopulations made in the Middle Ages during the centuries ninth through eleventh, linked to the Church and the edification of several monasteries in the region. Language As in the rest of the community of Castilla y León, Spanish is the most widely spoken language and the language of instruction in schools. See also * Province of León * El Bierzo ...
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Castile And León
Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. It was created in 1983, eight years after the end of the Francoist regime, by the merging of the provinces of the historic region of León: León, Zamora and Salamanca with those of Castilla La Vieja (Old Castile): Ávila, Burgos, Palencia, Segovia, Soria and Valladolid. The provinces of Santander and Logroño, which until then had formed part of Castile, opted out of this merger and formed the new Autonomous Communities of Cantabria and La Rioja respectively. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain in terms of area, covering 94,222 km2. It is however sparsely populated, with a population density below 30/km2. While a capital has not been explicitly declared, the seats of the executive and legislative powers are set in Valladolid by law and for all purposes that city (also the most populated municipali ...
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Las Médulas
Las Médulas () is a historic gold-mining site near the town of Ponferrada in the comarca of El Bierzo (province of León, Castile and León, Spain). It was the most important gold mine, as well as the largest open-pit gold mine in the entire Roman Empire. Las Médulas Cultural Landscape is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Advanced aerial surveys conducted in 2014 using LIDAR have confirmed the wide extent of the Roman-era works. The spectacular landscape of Las Médulas resulted from the ''ruina montium'' (wrecking of the mountains), a Roman mining technique described by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD. The technique employed was a type of hydraulic mining which involved undermining a mountain with large quantities of water. The water was supplied by interbasin transfer. At least seven long aqueducts tapped the streams of the La Cabrera district (where the rainfall in the mountains is relatively high) at a range of altitudes. The same aqueducts were used to wash the extens ...
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Comarcas Of Castile And León
In Spain, a ''comarca'' (, sing. ''comarca'') is either a traditional territorial division without any formal basis, or a group of municipalities, legally defined by an autonomous community for the purpose of providing common local government services. In English, a comarca is equivalent to a district, county, area or zone. Legally defined comarcas The large majority of legally defined comarcas are in Catalonia (42) and Aragon (33)), and are regulated by law and are governed by a comarcal council with specified powers. There are seven comarcas formally registered in Basque Country and one in Castile and León. In Andalusia and Asturias, comarcas are defined by law but lack any defined function. Informal comarcas In other regions, comarcas are traditional or historical or in some cases, contemporary creations designed for tourism promotions. In some other cases (e.g. La Carballeda) a comarca may correspond to a natural area, like a valley, river basin and mountainous area, ...
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Emperor Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and Augustus is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the ''Pax Romana'' or ''Pax Augusta''. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession. Originally named Gaius Octavius, he was born into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian ''gens'' Octavia. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesar's ...
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Astures
The Astures or Asturs, also named Astyrs, were the Hispano-Celtic inhabitants of the northwest area of Hispania that now comprises almost the entire modern autonomous community of Principality of Asturias, the modern province of León, and the northern part of the modern province of Zamora (all in Spain), and eastern Trás os Montes in Portugal. They were a horse-riding highland cattle-raising people who lived in circular huts of stone drywall construction. The Albiones were a major tribe from western Asturias. Isidore of Seville gave an etymology as coming from a ''river Asturia'', identified by David Magie with Órbigo river in the plain of León, by others the modern Esla river. Location The Asturian homeland encompassed the modern autonomous community of Asturias and the León, eastern Lugo, Orense, and northern Zamora provinces, along with the northeastern tip of the Portuguese region of Trás-os-Montes. Here they held the towns of ''Lancia'' (Villasabariego – Leó ...
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Sil (river)
The Sil is a river in León (Castile and León) and Galicia, Spain, a tributary of the Miño. Its total length is . The source of the Sil is in the Cantabrian Mountains in the Leonese town of Villablino. It flows through the provinces of León and Ourense. The largest city on the Sil is Ponferrada (León). The Sil flows into the Miño upstream from Ourense. Mouth The river joins the Miño river in Os Peares, in the province of Ourense. Generally, the hierarchy between rivers is performed by taking into account which junction has more volume and length. In this case, as with the Esla and Pisuerga with the Duero, the Sil has flows larger than the Miño at the junction. There is a saying that goes, "The Miño has the fame, but the Sil gives it water" (in Spanish, ''El Miño lleva la fama y el Sil le da el agua''). The Sil river also surpasses the Miño in length by about . Course The Sil runs through the León districts of Babia, Laciana, El Bierzo and La Cabrera, and Oure ...
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List Of Postal Codes In Spain
Spanish postal codes were introduced on 1 July 1984, when the introduced automated mail sorting. They consist of five numerical digits, where the first two digits, ranging 01 to 52, correspond either to one of the 50 provinces of Spain or to one of the two autonomous cities on the African coast. Two-digit prefixes The first two digits of a Spanish postal code identify the province or autonomous city it belongs to. The numbers were assigned to the 50 provinces of Spain ordered alphabetically at the time of implementation. The official names of some of the provinces have since changed, either to the regional language version of the name (e.g. from the Spanish to the Basque ) or to adopt the name of the autonomous community instead of the provincial capital (e.g. Santander to Cantabria). In these cases, the originally assigned code has been maintained, resulting in some exceptions to the alphabetical order. In addition, Ceuta and Melilla were originally included within the ...
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Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western ...
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