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 (including its exclave Rincón de Ademuz), Albacete, Ciudad Real, Toledo,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Guadalajara, and Teruel. 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, Huete, Villanueva de la Jara,

Motilla del Palancar Motilla del Palancar is a municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southe ...

Mota del Cuervo Mota del Cuervo is a municipality of Spain located in the province of Cuenca, Castilla–La Mancha. The municipality spans across a total area of 176.19 km2 and, as of 1 January 2020, it has a registered population of 6,055. It is one of the few ...

La Almarcha La Almarcha is a municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost ...

, and

Las Pedroñeras Las Pedroñeras is a small town and Municipalities of Spain, municipality in the province of Province of Cuenca, Cuenca, in the central region of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, southwestern Spain. ...

A Black and White Photo of the Cuenca Cathedral in Spain

History

In 1851, Cuenca lost

Requena-Utiel Requena-Utiel (; ) is a '' comarca'' currently in the province of Valencia, Valencian Community, Spain. The area was transferred to this province in 1851, as a result of a reform of the 1833 territorial division of Spain; before that it was a pa ...

to the neighbouring

Valencia Province Valencia ( , ), officially València (), is a province of Spain, in the central part of the autonomous Valencian Community. Of the province's 2.7 million people (2024), almost one-third live in the capital, Valencia, which is also the capita ...

, with which it was developing commercial ties. Nevertheless,

remained

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

-speaking (rather than Catalan), 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuenca, Province of C

Geography

History

Population development

See also

Notes and references