The Hoya of Baza is a valley in the northern part of the
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Granada
Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...
,
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
, southern
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, named after the town and former bishopric
Baza, Granada
Baza is a town in the province of Granada in Andalusia (southern Spain), twice a former Catholic bishopric and now a Latin Catholic titular see as Basti.
Modern town
It has 21,000 inhabitants (2003). It is situated at 844 m above sea level, in t ...
. It is one of the series of valleys forming the
Surco Intrabético
The Intrabaetic Basin ( es, Surco Intrabético or ''Depresión Intrabética'') is a discontinuous series of valleys in the Baetic System of Andalusia, Spain.
Description
The Intrabaetic Basin is a series of intermontane basins that separate the ...
.
It formed during the
Alpine orogeny of the
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...
Era. Initially, it was a large lake that filled in with
Paleogene
The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million yea ...
,
Neogene
The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...
and
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
materials.
[Manschof, Peter: ''Granada, espacios naturales'', Corporación de Medios de Andalucía, Granada, 2006, p. 104] It was originally part of the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
basin, connected to the sea by the corridor of the
Almanzora River. Later, the action of the African and Eurasian
tectonic plates
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
raised it upward to become an
endorheic
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
lake (that is, one without an outlet) above sea level.
The term "''hoya''" literally means "trough" and refers to the boxed in character of the area.
The Hoya of Baza is surrounded by an imposing belt of mountain ranges, many of them over in altitude: the
Sierra de Baza
Sierra de Baza is a mountain range near the city of Baza in the Granada province in Spain. It is named after the town of Baza and its highest point is the 2,269 m high Calar de Santa Bárbara.
It is located between the Sierra Nevada and the Sier ...
,
Sierra de la Sagra,
Sierra de Cazorla
Sierra de Cazorla is a mountain range of the Prebaetic System in the Jaén Province in Spain. It is named after the town of Cazorla. Its highest point is the 1,847 m high Gilillo peak.
Geography
This mountain range is located between the Sierr ...
,
Sierra de Orce
Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following:
Places Mountains and mountain ranges
* Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico
* Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...
, and
Sierra de las Estancias
Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following:
Places Mountains and mountain ranges
* Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico
* Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...
. The
Cerro Jabalcón
Cerro is Spanish for "hill" or "mountain".
Toponyms
;Bolivia:
* Cerro Rico, the "Rich Mountain" containing silver ore near Potosi, Bolivia
;Brazil:
* Cerro Branco, a municipality of Rio Grande do Sul
* Cerro Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, a munici ...
separates the Hoya of Baza from the
Hoya of Guadix
The Hoya of Guadix ( es, Hoya de Guadix) is a natural plain in the northern part of the province of Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It covers some , and is formed by the basins of the rivers Fardes and Guadix. It is surrounded by the heights of the ...
.
The Hoya is generally relatively flat, but cut by a dense network of rivers that form a maze of
gullies
A gully is a landform created by running water, mass movement, or commonly a combination of both eroding sharply into soil or other relatively erodible material, typically on a hillside or in river floodplains or terraces. Gullies resemble lar ...
and
ravine
A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.[badland
Badlands are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded."Badlands" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 47. They are characterized by steep slopes, mi ...](_blank)
s.
Apart from the fertile plains and other places that have been worked, the territory is
steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
, bearing only shrubbery typical of cold regions.
See also
*
Baza, Granada
Baza is a town in the province of Granada in Andalusia (southern Spain), twice a former Catholic bishopric and now a Latin Catholic titular see as Basti.
Modern town
It has 21,000 inhabitants (2003). It is situated at 844 m above sea level, in t ...
Notes
{{coord, 37.6, -2.7, type:landmark_dim:50km_region:ES, display=title
Geography of the Province of Granada
Valleys of Spain
Landforms of Andalusia