Patones
Although small, the town has its own council, and consists of two distinct settlements: The ancient hillside village (Upper) Patones Arriba and the modern (Lower) Patones Abajo on the plain below.
* Altitude: 834 m
* Extension: 35 km²
* Distance from Madrid: 60 km
* Population (in 1999) 368
According to an 18th-century travelogue quoted below, the name is believed to originate from the family name of the first settlers Patón, who were, reputedly refugees from Muslim invaders who established a private Christian Kingdom of Patones Alternatively, since Iberian languages are of Latin origin the name may simply be derived from patricius.
The area around Patones is a major water catchment zone with extensive storage reservoirs and pumping stations operated by the company Canal de Isabel II which is the principal water utility for both the city and the region of Madrid.
As mechanized transport grew in importance around the mid 20th century, a more accessible settlement was established on the plain below the original village, hence the name Patones Abajo (Lower Patones)
Although the schools and administration buildings in the old village were then of fairly recent construction, new facilities were created in the new settlement. (Upper) Patones Arriba was finally abandoned in the mid-1960s.
Map - Patones
Map
Country - Spain
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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 |