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Antequera () is a city and municipality in the Comarca de Antequera, province of Málaga, part of the Spain autonomous community of Andalusia. It is known as "the heart of Andalusia" ( el corazón de Andalucía) because of its central location among Málaga, Granada, Córdoba, and Seville. The Antequera Dolmens Site is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
In 2011, Antequera had a population of 41,854. It covers an area of 749.34 km2 with a population density of 55.85 inhabitants/km2, and is situated at an altitude of 575 meters. There is also a very small town named "Gloriano" in the bottom of Antequera. Antequera is the most populous city in the interior of the province and the largest in area. It is the twenty-second largest in Spain. The city is located 45 km from Málaga and 115 km from Córdoba. The cities are connected by a high-speed train and the A-45 motorway. Antequera is 160 km from Seville and 102 km from Granada, which is connected by motorway A-92 and high-speed rail.
Due to its strategic position in transport and communications, with four airports located approximately one hour away and the railway running from the Port of Algeciras, Antequera is emerging as an important centre of transportation logistics, with several industrial parks, and the new Logistics Centre of Andalusia (Centro Logístico de Andalucía). In addition, the Vega de Antequera, watered by the river Guadalhorce, is a fertile agricultural area that provides cereals, olive oil, and vegetables in abundance.
The nearby natural reserve of El Torcal, famous for its unstable limestone rocks, forms one of the most important karst landscapes in Europe. It has an extensive archaeological and architectural heritage, highlighted by the dolmens of Menga, Viera, and El Romeral, and numerous churches, convents, and palaces from different periods and in different styles. Antequera played a role in the rise of Andalusian nationalism: it was the site of the drafting of the Federal Constitution of Antequera in 1883, and also of the so-called Pact of Antequera in 1978, which led to the achievement of autonomy for Andalusia. It was considered as a possible headquarters of the Andalusian government, but lost the vote in favor of Seville.
The saltwater Fuente de Piedra Lagoon, which is one of the few nesting places of the greater flamingo in Europe, and the limestone rock formation of the El Torcal, a nature reserve and popular spot for climbers, are nearby. Across the Guadalhorce is Peña de los Enamorados, ("The Lovers' Rock"), named after the legend of two young Moorish lovers from rival clans who threw themselves from the rock while being pursued by the girl's father and his men. This romantic legend was adapted by the English poet Robert Southey for his Laila and Manuel, in which the lovers were a Muslim girl and her father's Christian slave.
The larger one, Dólmen de Menga, is twenty-five metres in diameter and four metres high, and was built with thirty-two , the largest weighing about 180 tonnes. After completion of the chamber (which probably served as a grave for the ruling families) and the path leading into the centre, the stone structure was covered with earth and built up into the hill that exists today. When the grave was opened and examined in the nineteenth century, archaeologists found the skeletons of several hundred people inside.
The Dólmen del Romeral, which dates from about 1800 BCE, is outside the city. A large number of smaller stones were used in its construction.
Los Silillos, a significant Bronze Age prehistoric village was uncovered several miles north of Antequera.
From the 7th century BC, the region was settled by the Iberians, whose cultural and economic contacts with the and Ancient Greece are demonstrated by many archaeological discoveries. In the middle of the first millennium BCE, the Iberians mingled with wandering (see Celtiberians) and with the civilization of Tartessos of southern Spain.
The dolmen complex of Menga, Viera, and Romeral was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2016 under the name "Antequera Dolmens Site". The manifest for recognition from United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also includes Peña de los Enamorados (Lovers' Rock) and El Torcal.
During the fall of the Roman Empire, the area of Anticaria fell to the pagan Silingi Vandals in the 410s. After they were attacked by the Visigoths, they voluntarily submitted to Gunderic of the Hasdingi and western Alans in 419. His half-brother Genseric succeeded him, eventually relocating his people to Vandal Kingdom. Spain was then dominated by the Visigothic Kingdom, which converted to Arian Christianity.
On 16 September 1410, after a nearly 4-month siege, the city capitulated to a Castilian army led by the infante Ferdinand of Trastámara. The Muslim population was forced to leave their homes, departing to Archidona and Granada. Following a compromise, they surrendered the castle and their Christian slaves in exchange for being provided with beasts of burden to carry their goods out of the city. For two days, they were able to sell their properties. 895 men, 770 women and 863 children left. The settling for new Christian population was tasked to Rodrigo de Narváez. After the conquest and up until 1487, Antequera was attached to Seville from an ecclesial standpoint.
The city became part of the Kingdom of Seville, a realm of the Crown of Castile. On 20 February 1448, despite some earlier reluctance to take such a dangerous measure in a relatively big town, John II granted Antequera the privilege of homicianos, thus easing the conditions for the settling of criminals seeking redemption. However demographic growth in Antequera, a borderland that had been recently endangered by the military campaign undertaken by Muhammad X in the area, did not substantially improve. By 1477 the situation was critical. Nasrids attempted to conquer the city, ravaging the crops and firing housing.
The city served as major military power base during the War of Granada.
Population boomed after the conquest of Málaga by the Catholic Monarchs in 1487 (and the ensuing conquest of Granada in 1492), as concerns about military insecurity were left in the past.
Antequera became an important commercial town at the crossroads between Málaga to the south, Granada to the east, Córdoba to the north, and Seville to the west. Because of its location, its flourishing agriculture, and the work of its craftsmen, all contributing to the cultural growth of the city, Antequera was called the "Heart of Andalusia" by the early sixteenth century. During this time the townscape also changed. Mosques and houses were torn down, and new churches and houses built in their place. The oldest church in Antequera, the late Gothic Iglesia San Francisco, was built around the year 1500.
In 1504, the humanist university of the Real Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor was founded; it became a meeting place for important writers and scholars of the Spanish Renaissance. A school of poets arose during the sixteenth century that included Pedro Espinosa, Luis Martín de la Plaza, and Cristobalina Fernández de Alarcón. A school of sculpture produced artists who were employed mainly on the many churches built, and who were in demand in Seville, Málaga and Córdoba and the surrounding areas. The newly built churches included San Sebastián in the city centre and the largest and most splendid of the city, Real Colegiata de Santa María, with its richly decorated mannerism façade.
Still more churches and convents were built into the eighteenth century (today there are 32 in the city altogether), as were palaces for the members of the aristocracy and the wealthier citizens, in the Spanish Baroque style.
Antequera's prosperity slowly came to a close at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. Spain had to accept the loss of its American colonies and lost a number of crucial military conflicts in Europe. That led to a deep economic crisis, which in some parts of the country, led people to turn to . Church, aristocracy, and the upper middle class — the great landowners — who had been the clients and sponsors of the creative arts, lost most of their fortunes and could not afford to build more churches or palaces.
In the 1960s, the nearby Costa del Sol developed into an international tourism hotspot and Antequera experienced another economic upswing. Today the city is an important tourist and cultural center, nationally, as well as regionally.
The city's museums house about 80% of all the art treasures in the province of Málaga, which makes it one of the cultural centres of Andalusia.
In the eastern suburbs there is one of the largest burial mounds in Spain, dating from the Bronze Age, and with subterranean chambers excavated to a depth of c. 20 m. See the Dólmen de Menga.
Today, tourism is the main industry and there are an increasing number of international visitors.
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