Seseña is a municipality of

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 ...

located in the

province of Toledo Toledo () is a Province (Spain), province of central Spain, in the western part of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Madrid Province, Madrid, Cuenca Province (Spai ...

Castilla–La Mancha Castilla–La Mancha (, ; ) is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Comprising the provinces of Province of Albacete, Albacete, Province of Ciudad Real, Ciudad Real, Province of Cuenca, Cuenca, Province of Guadalajar ...

. It is part of

La Sagra La Sagra is a region in central Spain lying between the cities of Madrid and Toledo. In a wider sense, it includes municipalities belonging to both the south of the Community of Madrid and the north of the province of Toledo. In a more restricted ...

comarca. As of 1 January 2020, the municipality has a population of 27,066. Seseña gained visibility as a result of controversial speculative development projects in Vallegrande and El Quiñón during the

Spanish property bubble The Spanish property bubble is the collapsed overshooting part of a long-term price increase of real estate prices in Spain. This long-term price increase has happened in various stages from 1985 up to 2008. The housing bubble can be clearly divi ...

. The municipality is nowadays composed of four sectors that are far away from each other and have no footpath connecting them, as is usual in Spanish towns.

Geography

The municipality spans across a total area of 71.41 km². To the north, the municipality borders the

Madrid region The Community of Madrid (; ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities and 50 provinces of Spain, provinces of Spain. It is located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and Meseta Central, Central Plateau (); its capital and largest munici ...

. The northern part of Seseña reaches the highest altitude in the municipality, at around 684 metres above mean sea level, while the southern end close to the

Jarama Jarama () is a river in central Spain. It flows north to south and passes east of Madrid where the El Atazar Dam is built on a tributary, the Lozoya River. It flows into the river Tagus in Aranjuez. The Manzanares is a tributary of the Jaram ...

and

Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

rivers lies at around 500 metres.

History

The Battle of Seseña was an ill-fated Republican assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña in October 1936 during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. The battle is notable for being the first time that tank warfare was seen in the Spanish war and for the use of

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...

s against loyalist

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

T-26 tanks by

Francoist Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

rebel troops. In May 2016, 9,000 residents of Seseña were ordered to evacuate after a

tire fire Tire fires are events that involve the combustion of large quantities of tires, usually Tire recycling, waste tires, typically in locations where they are stored, dumped, or processed. They exist in two forms: as fast-burning events, leading to ...

at a dump produced a toxic cloud.

Francisco Hernando

The ''Residencial Francisco Hernando'' development was built in the El Quiñón area of Seseña by property developer

Onde 2000 Onde 2000 is a motorcycle racing team previously competing in the 125 cc road racing Grand Prix world championship. The team withdrew from MotoGP after 8 races in the 2009 season due to financial difficulties. In 2009, the team competed in ...

belonging to the Grupo Francisco Hernando. Begun during the construction boom of the 2000s (decade), due to the municipality's location within commuting distance of Madrid, it was to be one of the largest such developments in Spain, with an original plan of 13,500 units costing over 9 billion euros to build. However, the massive project raised eyebrows. Since utilities such as water and gas lines were not included in the plans, the completed units risked being uninhabitable. Also the project had been approved unusually quickly: it turned out that the authorities had been bribed, and the former local Mayor José Luis Martín was soon arrested, but never brought to trial."Meltdown:Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse"
Canadian CBC Investigative Television series, 2008.. Following scandal and the economic crisis related to the Spanish property bubble, the developer ran into trouble sustaining demand and financing for the project. By mid-2008 fewer than 3000 of the completed apartments had been sold and fewer than a third of the sold apartments were occupied, leaving the development a "

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

" reminder of Spain's economic woes. The developer, Francisco Hernando Contreras aka El Pocero, was never criminally charged with wrongdoing and moved his business to

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...

. He died on 3 April 2020 of

coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include f ...

. In the context of the boom of

logistics Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the Consumption (economics), point of consumption according to the ...

experienced in

(and the spread of the

mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabrication, prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or ...

phenomena in nearby locations such as Carranque, Yeles, Numancia, Illescas, and Yuncos), most of the dwellings in the Residencial Francisco Hernando were inhabited by the early 2020s, and the municipal government thereby unblocked a plan for the construction of more buildings, with the municipality laying out a project in 2022 seeking to build "up until 13,825 dwellings", even more than those 'El Pocero' dreamed of. Residencial Francisco Hernando is the inspiration and setting for the 2022 novel ''Lejos'' by , published in English as ''Far''.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sesena Municipalities in the Province of Toledo Former populated places in Spain