Seseña is a municipality of

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 ...

located in the

province of Toledo Toledo is a province of central Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Madrid, Cuenca, Ciudad Real, Badajoz, Cáceres, and Ávila. Its capital is the city of Toledo. ...

Castilla–La Mancha Castilla–La Mancha (, , ), or Castile La Mancha, is an autonomous community of Spain. Comprising the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Toledo, it was created in 1982. The government headquarters are in Toledo, and ...

. It is part of

La Sagra La Sagra is a Castilian comarca delineated by natural formations but not legally recognized. The comarca includes localities belonging to both the province of Madrid and the province of Toledo. La Sagra covers an area of 1322 km2, and is bordered ...

comarca. As of 1 January 2020, the municipality has a population of 27,066. Seseña gained visibility as a result of controversial speculative development projects in Vallegrande and El Quiñón during the

Spanish property bubble The Spanish property bubble is the collapsed overshooting part of a long-term price increase of Spanish real estate prices. This long-term price increase has happened in various stages from 1985 up to 2008. The housing bubble can be clearly divi ...

. The municipality is nowadays composed of four sectors that are far away from each other and have no footpath connecting them, as is usual in Spanish towns.

Geography

The municipality spans across a total area of 71.41 km². To the north, the municipality borders the

Madrid region The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munici ...

. The northern part of Seseña reaches the highest altitude in the municipality, at around 684 metres above mean sea level, while the southern end close to the

Jarama Jarama () is a river in central Spain. It flows north to south, and passes east of Madrid where the El Atazar Dam is built on a tributary, the Lozoya River. It flows into the river Tagus in Aranjuez. The Manzanares is a tributary of the Jarama ...

and

Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see #Name, below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections ...

rivers lies at around 500 metres.

History

The

Battle of Seseña The Battle of Seseña was Republican-Soviet assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña, near Toledo, 30 km south of Madrid in October 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. After the fall of Talavera de la Reina and Toledo in September 19 ...

was an ill-fated

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña in October 1936 during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. The battle is notable for being the first time that tank warfare was seen in the Spanish war and for the use of

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...

s against loyalist

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

T-26 tank The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light ...

s by

Francoist Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...

rebel troops.

Francisco Hernando

The ''Residencial Francisco Hernando'' development was built in the El Quiñón area of Seseña by property developer

Onde 2000 Onde 2000 is a motorcycle racing team previously competing in the 125 cc road racing Grand Prix world championship. The team withdrew from MotoGP after 8 races in the 2009 season due to financial difficulties. In 2009, the team competed in ...

belonging to the Grupo Francisco Hernando. Begun during the construction boom of the 2000s (decade), due to the municipality's location within commuting distance of Madrid, it was to be one of the largest such developments in Spain, with an original plan of 13,500 units costing over 9 billion euros to build. However, the massive project raised eyebrows. Since utilities such as water and gas lines were not included in the plans, the completed units risked being uninhabitable. Also the project had been approved unusually quickly: it turned out that the authorities had been bribed, and the former local Mayor José Luis Martín was soon arrested, but never brought to trial."Meltdown:Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse"
Canadian CBC Investigative Television series, 2008.. Following scandal and the economic crisis related to the Spanish property bubble, the developer ran into trouble sustaining demand and financing for the project. By mid-2008 fewer than 3000 of the completed apartments had been sold and fewer than a third of the sold apartments were occupied, leaving the development a "

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

" reminder of Spain's economic woes. The developer,

Francisco Hernando Contreras Francisco Hernando Contreras (2 June 1945 – 3 April 2020), known as Paco el Pocero, was a Spanish businessman in the construction industry. From a humble background, Hernando became a prominent builder in the Madrid area. His most famous proje ...

aka El Pocero, was never criminally charged with wrongdoing and moved his business to

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...

. He died on 3 April 2020 of

coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

. In the context of the boom of

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

experienced in

(and the spread of the

mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer). Us ...

phenomena in nearby locations such as Carranque, Yeles, Numancia,

Illescas Illescas may refer to: Places * Illescas, San Luis Potosí, Mexico * Illescas Peninsula, Peru * Cerro Illescas, Peru * Illescas, Toledo, a municipality in the province of Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain * Illescas, Florida, village in Uruguay * Il ...

, and

Yuncos Yuncos is a municipality located in the province of Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. According to the 2018 census (INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center * Instit ...

), most of the dwellings in the Residencial Francisco Hernando were inhabited by the early 2020s, and the municipal government thereby unblocked a plan for the construction of more buildings, with the municipality laying out a project in 2022 seeking to build "up until 13,825 dwellings", even more than those 'El Pocero' dreamed of.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sesena Municipalities in the Province of Toledo Former populated places in Spain