Rivas-Vaciamadrid () is the 15th most populated city in the

Community of Madrid 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 munic ...

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") , ...

. It belongs to the

Madrid metropolitan area The Madrid metropolitan area is a monocentric metropolitan area in the centre of the Iberian peninsula, around the municipality of Madrid, Spain. It is not related to any sort of administrative delimitation, and thus, its limits are ambiguous. ...

and is located just 15 km from central

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, to the south-east. In the southern part of the municipality, the Manzanares river flows into the Jarama, which is part of the Lower Manzanares and Jarama Rivers Regional Park. Almost three quarters of the municipality form part of the park, making it an important ecological centre with numerous lakes and various species of wildlife and fauna. It has been one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Spain in recent years, growing from 500 inhabitants in the 1980s to its current figure of 84,000. It is bordered to the north by

and San Fernando de Henares, to the south by Arganda del Rey and

San Martín de la Vega San Martín de la Vega is a Spanish municipality located in Comarca de Las Vegas, Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre o ...

, to the east by

Mejorada del Campo Mejorada del Campo is a municipality of Spain belonging to the Community of Madrid. History Mejorada del Campo is first mentioned in a 1247 document, as one of the several places belonging to the personal lordship of the Bishops of Segovia s ...

and

Velilla de San Antonio Velilla de San Antonio is a town in Spain. It is located in the Madrid Metropolitan Area, in the Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located i ...

, and to the west by Getafe and Madrid (the district of Villa de Vallecas.) Rivas-Vaciamadrid municipality has the fourth lowest rate of population in risk of poverty, among municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. It is the most populated city in Spain governed by United Left.

History

In 1845, the area of Vaciamadrid, previously part of the village of Vallecas, was joined to the town of Rivas, with the unified municipality originally called Ribas de Jarama. The area was devastated 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 Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

and had to be rebuilt in the post-civil war period. In 1954 the name was changed to its current title. At the end of the 1980s the area was designated as a future nucleus for new urbanisation projects under a project titled Rivas-Urbanizaciones (Rivas-Urbanisations). The first developments were those in the current districts of Pablo Iglesias and Covibar. In 2004 the municipal boundary with the city of

was altered. This involved the transfer of areas known as Covibar-Madrid to Rivas-Vaciamadrid. In exchange, some uninhabited areas in Los Berrocales district were transferred to the Vicálvaro district of Madrid in order to allow the construction of a new housing project.

Local politics

Rivas-Vaciamadrid has always been governed by left-wing parties, mostly United Left, that has remained uninterruptedly in power since 1991. The current mayor is Pedro del Cura, who took office in 2014 after José Masa's resignation, and was re-elected in 2015. However, the 2015 election gave the worst result to United Left (24.5%) since its creation in 1986, due to the big support that the Podemos-linked candidacy ''Rivas Puede'' (Spanish for ''Rivas Can'') obtained (23.3%).

Transport

The main road serving Rivas-Vaciamadrid is the A-3 motorway, that connects

with

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

. The exits to Rivas-Vaciamadrid are numbers 12 (West), 15 (Centre) and 17 (East). The main public transport in Rivas-Vaciamadrid is the bus. There are four lines connecting with Madrid and three connecting with other municipalities. Moreover, the

Madrid Metro The Madrid Metro ( Spanish: ''Metro de Madrid'') is a rapid transit system serving the city of Madrid, capital of Spain. The system is the 14th longest rapid transit system in the world, with a total length of 293 km (182 mi). Its gr ...

line 9 crosses the city on its way between Madrid and Arganda del Rey, serving Rivas-Vaciamadrid with three stations: Rivas-Urbanizaciones in the west, Rivas Futura in the centre and Rivas-Vaciamadrid in the east.

Festivals

The main festivals are the festival of Romería del Cristo de Rivas (29 September), San Isidro (15 May), the popular festivals of Rivas-Urbanizaciones (second weekend of September) and the festivals of the Urbanisation La Partija on the 15 June.

Education

Locally there are 15 kindergartens (6 public and 9 private), 14 public primary education schools, 5 secondary education institutions and two private schools.

Sports

The city has three teams playing at the top level in their respective sports, Rivas Osos in

american football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

since 2000;

Rivas Ecópolis Baloncesto Rivas CDE, commonly known as Rivas Ecópolis due to sponsorship reasons, is a Spanish professional women's basketball team based in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Community of Madrid. History Baloncesto Rivas was founded in 1988 as CD Covíbar b ...

plays in the women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

top division, the

Liga Femenina de Baloncesto The Liga Femenina de Baloncesto, also known as Liga Femenina Endesa for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of league competition for women's basketball in Spain. It is the women's equivalent of the men's Liga ACB and is run by the Spanish Ba ...

and Dridma Rivas Softball club plays in the Liga Nacional Sófbol Femenino División de Honor, the highest division of softball in Spain

References

External links

Rivas-Vaciamadrid council homepage

Statistics institute of Madrid
{{authority control Municipalities in the Community of Madrid