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Benamargosa
| AREA |
12.10 Km² |
| ALTITUDE ABOVE SEA LEVEL |
96 m |
| AVERAGE ANNUAL RAINFALL |
522 l/m² |
| WHAT THE NATIVES ARE CALLED |
Benamargoseños |
| MONUMENTS |
La Encarnación church and the cemetery hermitage |
| GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION |
In the La Axarquía region 11 kilometres from
Vélez Málaga and 46 from the provincial
capital. The urban centre is about 100 metres above
sea level. |
| POPULATION CENSUS IN 1994 |
1662 |
| AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE |
17.3 ºC |
| TOURIST INFORMATION |
Town
Hall, Plaza del Ayuntamiento (29718). Telephone:
952 517 002; Fax: 952 517 271 |
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The
locality borders the river of the same name, Benamargosa.
This stream is called the River La Cueva from its
source to the village and a few kilometres downstream
empties into the River Vélez after shaping
a narrow valley that is the dominant feature of
the area’s terrain. It is surrounded by plots, orange trees, lemon trees
and subtropical fruit trees which carpet the narrow
valley of the river in green and ascend the sides
of the flanking hills in plots.
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The traveller’s first impression as he approaches
this village is that he is entering an enormous,
well-planned and well-tended orchard where the
citrus trees-oranges and lemons-join their perennial
greenery
to that of the subtropical fruits that have been
more recently introduced in the region. The terraces
of these crops climb to the nearest hills, which
are devoid of vegetation on their highest levels, a real oasis which strongly contrasts with the dryness
of the hills where the miracle of water has not
reached.
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Since there is absolutely no documentation on which
to depend in outlining the history of this village
before the arrival of the Arabs, one must start with
the fact that the thirteenth century Muslim botanist
Ibn Beithar was the first to introduce citrus cultivation
in this region. As to the name of the village, it is
accepted that it derives from Ben Ha-Maruxa, but this
is more a deduction than a certainty.
The village’s name begins to appear in some chronicles in the late fifteenth
century. From them we learn that in that era the locality, like many other farm
communities, belonged to the royal burgh of Comares, and also that its inhabitants
at first did not take part in the Moorish uprising but would eventually join
the revolt in 1569, with the result that in the following year they were driven
from their lands, leaving them virtually uninhabited. Its later development was
thus directly subordinated to Vélez Málaga.
In 1810 the mayor of the royal burgh, like that of a number of other mayors,
was obliged to sign an oath of allegiance to José Napoleón I, King
of Spain. The appearance of the phylloxera
pest sapped the economy of the village to the point
that many of its residents had to leave for other
areas in search of a better life. |
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As well as the handicrafts common to the region such
as esparto grass weaving, there is a specialist
in iron forging.
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How to Get
There
To get to Benamargosa, take the A-335 in the direction of Vélez-Málaga
from the Mediterranean Expressway (A-7, N-340). About 5 kilometres past that
locality the turning will be marked for the MA-145, which leads straight to Benamargosa.
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