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 ...

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 ...

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.

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

See also

Notes