El Borge is a town and municipality in the province of

Málaga Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...

, part of the

autonomous community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

in southern

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 point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It is located in the

comarca A ''comarca'' (, , , ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain, and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, mark ...

of Axarquía. The municipality is situated approximately 24 kilometers from Vélez-Málaga, 28 from the provincial capital of

and 567 km from

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 ...

. It has a population of approximately 1,000 residents. The natives are called ''Borgeños''. The town of El Borge is situated at the foot of the Cerro de Cútar mountain, on the border of the Axarquia and Montes de Malaga comarcas, and is known as the "raisin capital" because the town is one of the largest producers of Muscatel raisins. These products have their own DO (denominacion de origin), like wine. It's no surprise, then, that El Borge is one of the towns of the Ruta de la Pasa (The Raisin Route), and or that in its surroundings you can see many paseros (areas where grapes dried by the sun and converted into delicious raisins). El Borge has some degree of notoriety as the birthplace of one of the most famous bandits in 19th-century Malaga province. Luis Muñoz Garcia, known as the Bizco de El Borge, was born here. Today, his birthplace has been converted into a rural hotel with a small museum dedicated to banditry. Regarding local products, besides the tasty and famous local Muscat raisins and wine, you can find ajoblanco (chilled almond soup), gazpacho (chilled tomato soup) with lima beans or cucumber, tortillas de bacalao con miel de caña (cod tortillas with honey) and hornazo del día de San Marcos (a bread-like desert with a boiled egg in the middle), amongst other culinary specialities. The best day to enjoy the Muscatel dishes is on the Dia de la Pasa (Raisin Day) - a popular fiesta, held on the third Sunday of September, which thousands of visitors come to. Other days highlighted in the town's celebration calendar are the Fiestas Patronales en honor de San Gabriel Arcángel (celebrations in honour of the Archangel St Gabriel) that take place at the end of Semana Santa, the Día de San Marcos on 25 April, the Romería de San Isidro on 15 May, and at the end of June the Noche de las Candelas.

References

Municipalities in the Province of Málaga {{Andalusia-geo-stub

See also

References