Andalusia
Andalusia (Spanish: Andalucía) is an autonomous community of Spain. Andalusia is the most populated and second largest of the seventeen autonomous communities that constitute Spain. Its capital is Seville.
Andalusia is bounded on the north by Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; on the east by Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea; on the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean (south-west); on the south by the Mediterranean Sea (south-east) and the Atlantic Ocean (south-west) linked by the Strait of Gibraltar at the very south which separates Spain from Morocco. The British colony of Gibraltar at the south shares its three-quarter-mile land border with the Andalusian province of Cádiz.
History
Tartessos, the capital of a once great and powerful Tartessian Civilization, was located in Andalusia. More information about this region can be found in the entry Hispania Baetica, the name of the Roman province that corresponds to the region.
The Vandals, after which the region is named (Arabic has no way of expressing the "V" sound) moved briefly through the region during the 5th century before settling in North Africa, after which the region fell in the hands of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. 711 AD marked the Muslim invasion of the Iberian peninsula and the collapse of Visigothic rule.
European culture has been deeply influenced by the eight centuries of Muslim rule over the region, which ended in 1492 AD with the conquest of Granada by the Catholic monarchs. Astronomy, Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics, as we know it would not exist where it not for the translations of original Syriac Greek texts to Arabic and Hebrew, and then to Latin by the Andalusians.
The Spanish spoken in the Americas is largely descended from the Andalusian dialect of Spanish due to the role played by Seville as the gateway to Spain's American territories in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Andalusia is known for its Moorish architecture. Famous monuments include the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita in Córdoba, the Torre del Oro and Giralda towers and the Reales Alcázares in Seville, and the Alcazaba (Málaga) in Málaga. Archaeological remains include Medina Azahara, near Córdoba and Itálica, near Seville and Huelva port of the America discovery
Andalusia Day (Sp.: Día de Andalucía) is celebrated on February 28, to commemorate the date of the successful autonomy referendum vote.
Administrative divisions
Andalusia is divided into eight provinces named after the capital cities of these provinces:
Other important Andalusian towns are:
- El Ejido, and Roquetas de Mar, Almería
- Algeciras, San Fernando, Jerez, and El Puerto, Cádiz
- Almuñecar, Guadix and Motril, Granada
- Úbeda and Baeza, Jaén
- Antequera, Ronda and Marbella, Málaga
- Dos Hermanas, Lebrija, Osuna and Utrera, Sevilla
