Loja (), formerly Loxa, is a town in southern Spain, situated at the western limit of the

province of Granada Granada is a province of southern Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by the provinces of Albacete, Murcia, Almería, Jaén, Córdoba, Málaga, and the Mediterranean Sea (along the Costa Tropical). ...

. It is surrounded by the so-called

Sierra de Loja 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 ...

, of which the highest peak, Sierra Gorda, stands 1,671 metres above sea-level. Loja has sometimes been identified with the ancient Ilipula, or with the Lacibi (Lacibis) of Pliny and Ptolemy. It is unknown when Loja was first captured by the Moors; most likely this happened in the 8th century. It first clearly emerges in the Arab chronicles of the year 890. It was taken by Ferdinand III in 1226, but was soon afterwards abandoned. Its

Moorish The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or se ...

name, ''Medina Lawša'', was changed to ''Lauxa'' when it was captured by the Christians in 1486, during the Reconquista.

Isabella I of Castile Isabella I ( es, Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504), also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: ''la Católica''), was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, as well as List of Aragonese royal consorts, Queen consort ...

called it the "flower among thorns". The town was the centre of the Loja uprising in 1861, led by local , that was quickly suppressed. 'Loxa'

Main sights

The town's Islamic heritage is still evident in the quarter of the

Alcazaba A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...

, a Moorish fortress of which most of the walls and towers remain. Other sights include: * Convent of Santa Clara (16th century) * Convento of St. Francis of Assisi, including a 16th-century cloister *Church of the Incarnation (16th-17th centuries) *Church of ''San Gabriel'' (16th century) *Church of ''Santa Catalina'' (16th-17th century) *Church of ''N.tra S.ra Virgen de la Caridad '' (16th century) *Hermitages of Jesus Nazareno, san Roque, and Calvario, 16th century chapels and sanctuaries *'' Caseron de los Alcaides Cristianos'' (17th century) * ''Palacio de Narvaez'' (17th century) *''Fuente de la Mora'' ("Fountain of the Moorish maiden"), also known as ''los venticinco canos'', a fountain where waters from different springs are made to flow from twenty-five tubes.

Notes

References

*''Days in the Sun'' by Martin Andersen Nexo (1929)
Municipalities in the Province of Granada {{Granada-geo-stub