Cuenca is one of the five provinces of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha. It is located in the eastern part of this autonomous community and covers 17,141 square km. It has a population of 203,841 inhabitants -- the least populated of the five provinces. Its capital city is also called Cuenca.

Geography

The province is bordered by the provinces of

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

(including its

exclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

Rincón de Ademuz),

Albacete Albacete (, also , ; ar, ﭐَلبَسِيط, Al-Basīṭ) is a city and municipality in the Spanish autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha, and capital of the province of Albacete. Lying in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula, t ...

Ciudad Real Ciudad Real (, ; en, "Royal City") is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region. History It was founded ...

, Toledo,

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

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, and

Teruel Teruel () is a city in Aragon, located in eastern Spain, and is also the capital of Teruel Province. It has a population of 35,675 in 2014 making it the least populated provincial capital in the country. It is noted for its harsh climate, with ...

. The northeastern side of the province is in the mountainous Sistema Ibérico area. 211,375 people (2007) live in the province. Its capital is Cuenca, where nearly a quarter of the population live, some 52,980 people. There are 238 municipalities in Cuenca. Other populous towns and municipalities include Tarancón, San Clemente,

Quintanar del Rey Quintanar del Rey is a municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ...

, Huete, Villanueva de la Jara, Motilla del Palancar, Mota del Cuervo, La Almarcha and

Las Pedroñeras Las Pedroñeras is a small town and municipality in the province of Cuenca, in the central region of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, southwestern Spain. It was founded around 1500, and it is believed that the name comes from " ...

A Black and White Photo of the Cuenca Cathedral in Spain

History

In 1851 Cuenca lost

Requena-Utiel La Plana de Utiel-Requena is a ''comarca'' currently in the province of Valencia, Valencian Community, Spain. Historically, the ''comarca'' was part of Castile and formed part of the province of Cuenca in the 1833 provincial division of Javier d ...

to the neighbouring Valencia Province, with which it was developing commercial ties. Nevertheless,

remained Spanish-speaking (rather than

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

), while the loss of its most dynamic region left the province of Cuenca relatively underdeveloped economically.

Population development

The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.7) id:sfondo value:rgb(1,1,1) ImageSize = width:600 height:auto barincrement:30 PlotArea = left:40 bottom:40 top:20 right:20 DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:350 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal AlignBars = late ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo PlotData= color:skyblue width:20 shift:(-50,-5) fontsize:M anchor:till bar:1877 from:0 till:239 text:238,991 bar:1887 from:0 till:246 text:245,699 bar:1900 from:0 till:251 text:250,755 bar:1910 from:0 till:272 text:271,748 bar:1920 from:0 till:288 text:287,507 bar:1930 from:0 till:315 text:314,633 bar:1940 from:0 till:341 text:340,549 bar:1950 from:0 till:344 text:344,033 bar:1960 from:0 till:329 text:328,554 bar:1970 from:0 till:252 text:251,619 bar:1980 from:0 till:216 text:215,975 bar:1990 from:0 till:205 text:205,198 bar:2000 from:0 till:200 text:200,346 bar:2010 from:0 till:215 text:215,165 bar:2020 from:0 till:196 text:196,139 TextData= pos:(35,20) fontsize:M text:"Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE"

Notes and references

List of municipalities in Cuenca This is a list of the municipalities in the province of Cuenca, in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, Spain. There are 238 municipalities in the province. See also *Geography of Spain *List of cities in Spain ...

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