Granada | |
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Population (2003) | 450,439 |
Website | www.andalusia.com |
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the community of Andalusia, Spain. It is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of two rivers, Darro and Genil, at an elevation of 738 metres above sea level. At the 2003 census, the population of the city of Granada proper was 237,663, and the population of the entire urban area was estimated to be 450,439, ranking as the 13th-largest urban area of the Spanish Kingdom. About 3.3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these (31%) coming from South America.
The Alhambra, a famous Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is the most remarkable item of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian historical legacy that makes Granada a hot spot among cultural and tourist cities in Spain.
Granada is also well-known within Spain due to its prestigious university and, nowadays, wild night-life (though in the 1920s Federico García Lorca described the granadinos as "the worst bourgeoisie in Spain"). In fact, it is said that it is one of the three best cities for college students (the other two are Salamanca and Santiago de Compostela).
The pomegranate (in Spanish, granada) is the heraldic device of Granada.
The beauty of the sights of Granada is famous. A well known verse says:
« Dale limosna, mujer que no hay en la vida nada como la pena de ser ciego en Granada » |
"Give him some money, woman because there is nothing like the pity of being blind in Granada" |
— Francisco de Icaza |
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The city has been inhabited from the dawn of history. There was an Ibero-Celtic settlement here, which made contact in turn with Phoenecians, Carthagenians and Greeks. By the 5th century BCE, the Greeks had established a colony which they named "Elybirge". Under Roman rule, in the early centuries CE, this name had become "Ilíberis". The Visigoths maintained the importance of the city as a centre of both ecclesiastical and civil administration and also established it as a military stronghold.
A Jewish community established itself in what was effectively a suburb of the city, called "Gárnata" or "Gárnata al-yahud" (Granada of the Jews). It was with the help of this community that Moorish forces under Tariq ibn-Ziyad first took the city in 711, though it was not fully secured until 713. They gave it the name "Ilbira", the remaining Christian community calling this "Elvira", and it became the capital of a province of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Civil conflicts that wracked the Caliphate in the early 11th century led to the destruction of the city in 1010. In the subsequent reconstruction, the suburb of Gárnata was incorporated in the city, and the modern name in fact derives from this. With the arrival of the Zirid dynasty in 1013, Granada became an independent kingdom. By the end of the 11th century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach what is now the site of the Alhambra.
From 1232 to 1492, Granada (Arabic غرناطة Ġarnāṭah) was the seat of the Nasrid dynasty that ruled the sultanate (until 1238) and kingdom from the mid 13th century to the 15th century, one of the longest-lasting Islamic dynasties in the history of al-Andalus. The Nasrid sultans and kings were responsible for building most of the palaces in the Alhambra.
The city became the seat of the Nasrid kingdom (taifa) in 1238, when the Moors retreated during the Christian reconquest of Spain. The kingdom of Granada linked the commercial routes from Europe to Africa crossing the Sahara. The nation constantly shrunk, and by 1492, it was only a small nation on the southeastern coast. Life in Muslim Granada was quite different from contemporary Granadan life. This was the most religiously homogeneous area in the peninsula, in fact, Granada has been described [citation needed] as the first Muslim nation to be almost completely Muslim. Those Christians who did not convert to Islam had been deported or escaped to Christian countries in North Africa. The only religious minority was a small Jewish community. Arabic was the official language, and was the mother tongue of the majority of the population, Muslim, Christian, and Jew alike.
The most prominent members of the dynasty are:
See Nasrid dynasty for a full list of the Nasrid rulers of Granada.
On the 2nd of January 1492, the Moors surrendered to the Spanish, and the kingdom was incorporated into Castile. The fall of Granada holds an important place among the many significant events that mark the latter half of the 15th century. It ended, after an existence of eight hundred years, the Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula, and thus formed an offset to the progress of the Muslim power in Eastern Europe and the loss to the Christian world of Constantinople. It advanced Spain to the first rank among the nations of Europe, and gave her arms a prestige that secured for her position, influence, and deference long after the decline of her power had commenced.
The fall of the Moors is one of the most significant events in Granada's history. The predominantly Muslim population was gradually converted to Roman Catholicism, and Granada was the most thoroughly Muslim area in Spain. Arabic lost its place in everyday life and was replaced by Castilian. The mosques were converted into churches.
There are many important Moorish and Catholic architectural sites in Granada: