Hontalbilla is a municipality located in the

province of Segovia Segovia () is a province of central/northern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the province of Burgos in the north, Soria in the northeast, Guadalajara in the east, Madrid in the sou ...

, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

(

INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center * Instituto Nacional de Estadística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional de Estatística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional Elec ...

), the municipality has a population of 391 inhabitants.

History

Records survive of the village from as far back as 1184 when it was named as "Fontalvella". In 1247 it is mentioned as "Fuent Alviella del Pinar" and then, in the sixteenth century, as "Hontalbilla". Even today spelling errors are frequently made whereby a "v" is substituted for the "b" in the name. However, the final part of the name comes from the name "Fuente Albilla" ("Albilla Spring") and has nothing to do with any villa. The extent and quality of the

pine trees A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garde ...

in the area over the centuries is supported by many sources. In the middle of the nineteenth century

Pascual Madoz Pascual Madoz Ibáñez (May 17, 1806 – December 13, 1870), Spanish politician, statistician, was born at Pamplona. Biography In early life Madoz was settled in Barcelona, as a writer and journalist. He envisioned the construction of the ...

, writing in his (Spanish) Historical Dictionary of Geography and Statistics ("''Diccionario Geográfico-Estadístico-Histórico''"), mentioned the large and high-quality Corsican pines from which were manufactured the best wood-based products in the land.

References

Municipalities in the Province of Segovia {{Segovia-geo-stub