Alpujarra de la Sierra is a municipality located in the province of Granada, Spain. According to the 2007

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

(

INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center * Instituto Nacional de Estadística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional de Estatística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional Elec ...

), the city has a population of 1168 inhabitants.

History

It was formed by the union in 1971 of Mecina Bombarón and

Yegen Yegen is a village of the municipality of Alpujarra de la Sierra in the province of Granada. The village was the home of the British writer Gerald Brenan in the 1920s, and he described its customs in ''South from Granada'', one of his best-know ...

, and is situated in the central-northern area of La

Alpujarra The Alpujarra (, Arabic: ''al-bussarat'') is a natural and historical region in Andalusia, Spain, on the south slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the adjacent valley. The average elevation is above sea level. It extends over two provinces, ...

( Granada), 108 km from the provincial capital, in the south-east of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. It is bounded by the municipalities of

Lanteira Lanteira is a municipality located in the province of Granada, Spain. According to the 2004 census ( INE), the city has a population of 507 inhabitants. See also * List of municipalities in Granada * Emirate of Granada ) , common_languag ...

, Válor, Ugíjar, Cádiar and Bérchules. Its council was formed from the centres of Mecina Bombarón,

and Golco, together with the cortijada (hamlet/farmstead) of Montenegro, Spain. The municipality lies on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the houses look out towards the mediterranean sea in the distance. Its terraced farmlands are watered by the melting snow from above, giving rise to a high-altitude oasis of greenery above the arid foothills below. Alpujarra de La Sierra is one of over 50 villages in the area, which were the last stronghold of the Spanish Muslims, or Moors. Soon after the Castilians took Granada in 1492, all the region's Moors were forced to convert to Christianity. Those who refused took to the hills, settling in this remote, inaccessible area. Alpujarra de la Sierra retains its traditional Berber architecture and has many quaint white houses with flat clay roofs lining narrow streets. Author

Gerald Brenan Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan, CBE, MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain. Brenan is best known for ''The Spanish Labyrinth'', a historical work on the background t ...

, who wrote ''

South from Granada ''South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village'' is an autobiographical book by Gerald Brenan, first published in 1957. Brenan, a fringe member of the Bloomsbury Group, moved to Spain in 1919 and lived there on and off for the rest ...

'', was a resident of Alpujarra de la Sierra. He rebuilt a ruined house (now marked with a plaque in his memory) and was visited by many of his friends of the famous Bloomsbury group. In his book, Brenan describes the everyday life of Yegen in the 1920s.

References

Municipalities in the Province of Granada {{Granada-geo-stub