Castilla–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, which is the capital de facto.
It is a landlocked region largely occupying the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula's Inner Plateau, including large parts of the catchment areas of the Tagus, the Guadiana and the Júcar, while the northeastern relief comprises the Sistema Ibérico mountain massif. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's regions, with Albacete, Guadalajara, Toledo, Talavera de la Reina and Ciudad Real being the largest cities.
Castilla–La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. Prior to its establishment as an autonomous community, its territory was part of the New Castile (Castilla la Nueva) region along with the province of Madrid, except for Albacete province, which was part of the former Murcia region.
Geography
Castilla–La Mancha is located in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, occupying the greater part of the Submeseta Sur, the vast plain composing the southern part of the Meseta Central and La Mancha. The Submeseta Sur (and the autonomous community) is separated from the Submeseta Norte (and the community of Castilla y León) by the mountain range known as the Sistema Central. Despite this, the region has no shortage of mountain landscapes: the southern slopes of the aforementioned Sistema Central in the north, the Sistema Ibérico in the northeast, and the Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo in the south.
Castilla–La Mancha is the third largest of Spain's autonomous regions, with a surface area of , representing 15.7 percent of Spain's national territory.
The regional urban structure is polycentric, with no dominant central city. Insofar the largest municipality (Albacete) is located in the peripheral southeast, Madrid (outside the region), exerts influence over the extension of the so-called into the province of Guadalajara (including the provincial capital) as well as the north of the province of Toledo. The rest of urban centres lie on the central plains (with for example, the presence of intermediate agro-cities in La Mancha), contrasting with the sparsely populated mountains and other peripheral areas.
Relief The Meseta is the dominant landscape unit of a great part of the territory of Castilla–La Mancha: a vast, uniform plain with little relief.
The west-to-east Montes de Toledo range cuts across the meseta separating the (northern) Tagus and the (southern) Guadiana drainage basins. The most outstanding peaks of this modest mountain range include La Villuerca () and Rocigalgo ().
In contrast, a more mountainous zone surrounds the Meseta and serves as the region's natural border. In the north of the Province of Guadalajara, bordering Madrid and Segovia, is a mountain range forming part of the Sistema Central, among which can be distinguished the mountain ranges Pela, Ayllón, Somosierra, Barahona and Ministra, with the headwaters of the rivers Jarama, Cañamares and Henares. The Sistema Central also penetrates the northwest of the province of Toledo: a southwest to northeast sub-range known as the Sierra de San Vicente, bordered on the north by the Tiétar and on the south by the Alberche and the Tagus, rising up to its maximum heights at the summits of Cruces (1373 m), Pelados (1331 m) and San Vicente (1321 m).
On the northwest is the Sistema Ibérico, where there is important fluvial and especially karstic activity, which has given rise to such landscapes as the Ciudad Encantada, the Callejones de Las Majadas and the Hoces del Cabriel.
In the southeast is the ridge of the Sierra Morena, the southern border of the Meseta Central and the region's border with Andalusia. Within the Sierra Morena, distinction can be made between the Sierra Madrona, Sierra de Alcudia and Sierra de San Andrés. At the other southern extreme of Castilla–La Mancha, the Sierra de Alcaraz and Sierra del Segura form part of the Sistema Bético.
Hydrography
The territory of Castilla–La Mancha is divided into five principal watersheds. The Tagus, Guadiana, and Guadalquivir drain into the Atlantic Ocean and the Júcar and Segura into the Mediterranean Sea. The Tagus provides water for some 587,000 inhabitants in a watershed of . It includes the entire province of Guadalajara and the greater part of the province of Toledo, including the two largest cities of the latter province: the capital, Toledo, as well as Talavera de la Reina.
The Guadiana watershed extends in Castilla–La Mancha, 37 percent of that river's entire watershed, with a population of 583,259 inhabitants. It includes the southern part of the province of Toledo, nearly all of the province of Ciudad Real (except the very south), the southwest of the province of Cuenca and the northwest of the province of Albacete. The Guadalquivir watershed extends over 5.2 percent of the surface area of the autonomous community, extending through the southern parts of the provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete, including such important population center as Puertollano.
The Júcar watershed had, in 2006, 397,000 inhabitants in an area of , 19.9 percent of the Castillian-Manchegan territory and 36.6 percent of total of the Júcar watershed. It includes the eastern parts of the provinces of Cuenca and Albacete, including their respective capitals. Finally, the 34 municipalities of southeastern Albacete fall in the Segura watershed, with an extent of .
Climate
The predominant climate in Castilla–La-Mancha is the hot summer mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa), while the cold semi-arid climate (BSk) is also significant occupying most of the provinces of Toledo and Albacete. The warm summer mediterranean climate (Csb) can also be found, especially in the north of the community. To a lesser extent, there is the presence of an oceanic climate (Cfb) along the border with Aragon.
Lack of a marine influence leads to much more extreme temperatures: hotter summers and quite cold winters, with a daily oscillation as high as on some areas. Summer is the driest season, with temperatures often exceeding , and temperatures above are common in several areas. In winter, temperatures often drop below , producing frosts on clear nights, and occasional snow on cloudy nights. Most of the community has continental influences, although the climate is not exactly continental, as the average temperatures in the coldest month are above . Annual temperature ranges can reach over .
Castilla–La Mancha is part of what has traditionally been called España Seca ("Dry Spain"). Precipitation in general is relatively scarce, even in areas with a Mediterranean climate, although there are areas that receive more than . Precipitation presents a notable gradient from the center of the region, where it does not surpass per year, to the mountains where it can exceed per year, on the slopes of the Sierra de Gredos and the Serranía de Cuenca. The greater part of the region has less than of rain annually. The driest area of Castilla-La-Mancha is in the southeast of the community, near the border with the Region of Murcia, where rainfall does not exceed .
History Early human history of the territory Prehistory and protohistory The presents material linked to the transition from earlier settlers to the Early Acheulean. Archaeological sites related to the Middle Acheulean in the current-day region lie on the Campo de Calatrava as well as in the source of the Villanueva river, the Guadiana catchment area and the Segura catchment area. The Upper Acheulean sites are mostly located within the limits of the current-day province of Ciudad Real, substantially increasing in number and territorial spread across the region for the ensuing Middle Paleolithic. The Upper Paleolithic in the region presents instances of the art of the Upper Paleolithic in the Serranía del Alto Tajo and the Upper Júcar. There are instances of Cardium pottery in Caudete from the Early Neolithic.
The natural region of La Mancha presents a number of archaeological sites related to the so-called Culture of Las Motillas of the Bronze Age, tentatively considered as the earliest reported case of human culture in Western Europe able to implement a system of underground water collection, whose installment is possibly connected to the surface water crisis caused by the 4.2 kiloyear event. A number of these Bronze Age settlements, the motillas, were built over Chalcolithic settlements.
During the Iron Age II (La Tène culture), the territory occupied by the current provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete had a larger influence from Punic-Phoenician and Greek colonists, while the territory occupied by the current provinces of Toledo, Guadalajara and Cuenca was more influenced by the substrate of the earlier Atlantic Bronze, helping to line up the diffuse separation of two large groups of pre-Roman peoples ("Iberi" and "Celtiberi").
Iberian-related peoples dwelling the southern rim of the inner plateau such as the Oretani and Contestani were organised in tribes ruled by a kinglet or chieftain, each one controlling a number of settlements. The main cog of the Iberian form of settlement was the oppidum. From the 7th century BC onward, the Celtiberian settlements were characterised instead by the somewhat smaller castros.
Antiquity In the 2nd century BC, by the time of the advent of the Roman conquest wars, the first actual cities had begun to grow in the inner plateau. The Roman conquest brought substantial transformations to the Carpetani urban settlements, including the social division between slaves and freemen, the monetary economy, the fostering of manufacture and trade or the new Roman acculturation.
The territory of the current region was mining-rich in Antiquity, with mentions in classical sources to the mining of cinnabar from , silver, gold and other minerals such as selenite from Segobriga and the laminitana sharpening stone.
Middle Ages history
Built from scratch on state initiative, the founding of the city of Reccopolis by Visigoths in the late 6th century was a singular development in the context of the European Early Middle Ages.
Following the 8th century Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, just after the 741 Berber Revolt, the so-called Middle March of Al-Andalus (al-Ťāğr al-Awsat) was created as territorial sub-division, existing for the rest of the ensuing emiral and caliphal period of Al-Andalus. During this era, the Middle March had eminently a military nature, both shielding the core of Al-Andalus from the raids of the Northern Christian polities as well as serving as staging ground for Muslim offensive campaigns against the former. Berber clans such as the Masmuda Banu-Salim (linked to the founders of Guadalajara) or the Hawwara Banu Zennun (based in the ) had an important role in the Muslim settlement of parts of the Middle March. The city of Toledo stood distinctly unruly towards the Cordobese authorities, and remained a major city of al-Andalus, preserving quite of its former importance and hosting a leading cultural centre that lasted even after the Christian conquest.
As consequence of the fitna of al-Andalus in the early 11th century, an independent polity with its center in Toledo (the Taifa of Toledo), emerged, roughly occupying the territory of the current-day provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara and Cuenca (as well as that of Madrid),