Castile-La Mancha

Spain / Ciudad Real / Pedro Mucoz /
 region, second-level administrative division, draw only border, autonomous community
2.095.855 hab.

Castile-La Mancha (Spanish "Castilla-La Mancha") is an autonomous community of Spain.

Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities.

Its capital city is Toledo, and its most populated city is Albacete.

Castile-La Mancha was formerly grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile ("Castilla la Nueva"), but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of semi-autonomous regions ("las autonomías"), it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces.

It is in this region where the famous Spanish novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes was written. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau ("manxa" means parched earth in Arabic; hence La Mancha is not definitively related to the Spanish word "mancha", or stain, which is derived from Latin "macula") it remains a symbol of the Spanish culture with its sunflowers, oliveyards, windmills, Manchego cheese and "Don Quijote".
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castile-La_Mancha
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   39°39'29"N   3°10'40"W

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