Illán de Vacas (Illán de Vacas)
Illán de Vacas is a town in the province of Toledo, in Castile–La Mancha, Spain. The surface area of the municipality is 9 km², it has a total population of 3 inhabitants, making it the least populated municipality in Spain.
Illán de Vacas belongs to the "comarca" of Torrijos. It is bordered on the north by the municipality of Los Cerralbos, on the northwest by Otero, on the east by Domingo Pérez, on the south by Cebolla and on the west by Lucillos.
The town lies at an elevation of roughly 480 m, and 59 km west of Toledo and 35 km east of Talavera de la Reina, on the railway line between Talavera and Torrijos. It is approximately 95 km southwest of Madrid.
The mayor of Illán de Vacas is Mr. Julián Renilla Bru of the Partido Popular. In the 2004 General Election in Spain, all four votes cast at Illán de Vacas went to the Partido Popular.
The municipality contains a church consecrated to the Assumption of Our Lady (Iglesia de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora).
The word Illán derives from the Latin Iulianus. The town’s name stems from the worship of San Illán or San Julián (“Saint Julian”). The word de simply means “of”. The last word, Vacas, despite its current meaning in Spanish – namely “cows” – apparently has an Arabic origin, deriving from a word Wakka. In a document from the latter half of the 16th century, it says that the town’s name is “Vacas”, and that a fortunate man named Illán lived there.
Illán de Vacas belongs to the "comarca" of Torrijos. It is bordered on the north by the municipality of Los Cerralbos, on the northwest by Otero, on the east by Domingo Pérez, on the south by Cebolla and on the west by Lucillos.
The town lies at an elevation of roughly 480 m, and 59 km west of Toledo and 35 km east of Talavera de la Reina, on the railway line between Talavera and Torrijos. It is approximately 95 km southwest of Madrid.
The mayor of Illán de Vacas is Mr. Julián Renilla Bru of the Partido Popular. In the 2004 General Election in Spain, all four votes cast at Illán de Vacas went to the Partido Popular.
The municipality contains a church consecrated to the Assumption of Our Lady (Iglesia de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora).
The word Illán derives from the Latin Iulianus. The town’s name stems from the worship of San Illán or San Julián (“Saint Julian”). The word de simply means “of”. The last word, Vacas, despite its current meaning in Spanish – namely “cows” – apparently has an Arabic origin, deriving from a word Wakka. In a document from the latter half of the 16th century, it says that the town’s name is “Vacas”, and that a fortunate man named Illán lived there.
Map - Illán de Vacas (Illán de Vacas)
Map
Country - Spain
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| Flag of Spain | |
Anatomically modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 42,000 years ago. The ancient Iberian and Celtic tribes, along with other pre-Roman peoples, dwelled the territory maintaining contacts with foreign Mediterranean cultures. The Roman conquest and colonization of the peninsula (Hispania) ensued, bringing the Romanization of the population. Receding of Western Roman imperial authority ushered in the migration of different non-Roman peoples from Central and Northern Europe with the Visigoths as the dominant power in the peninsula by the fifth century. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centered in Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them León, Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and Navarre made an intermittent southward military expansion, known as Reconquista, repelling the Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Emirate of Granada in 1492. Jews and Muslims were forced to choose between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion, and eventually the converts were expelled through different royal decrees.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| EUR | Euro | € | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| EU | Basque language |
| CA | Catalan language |
| GL | Galician language |
| OC | Occitan language |
| ES | Spanish language |