La Mancha


La Mancha is a natural region and comarca located in the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha, covering parts of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo. Its area varies according to authors: from 15,000 km2 to 30,000 km2 making it one of the most extensive natural plains on the Iberian Peninsula. It represents the center of the Southern Plateau, bordering the regions of Mesa de Ocaña, Montes de Toledo, Campo de Calatrava, Sierra Morena, Campo de Montiel, Campos de Hellín, Monte Ibérico-Corredor de Almansa, Manchuela, Serranía de Cuenca and La Alcarria.

Political geography

Modern definition of La Mancha

La Mancha is a natural region in the center of Castilla–La Mancha, located south of the Inner Plateau, constituting one of the most extensive plateaus on the Iberian Peninsula. Its boundaries are imprecise, encompassing parts of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo.
One of the definitions of La Mancha is provided by Pascual Madoz in his work Diccionario geográfico-estadístico-histórico de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar :
Similar descriptions of La Mancha were made years later by José de Hosta, or the Enciclopedia Espasa.
Madoz also delineates La Mancha according to the territorial division of the time:
However, Madoz's description is ambiguous, as in practice it attempted to reflect the boundaries of the former Province of La Mancha, not the region of La Mancha, two distinct elements that share a toponym. The former was an administrative entity of the Kingdom of Toledo or New Castile, while the latter is a natural region from the perspective of physical geography.
According to the study En torno al concepto y límites de un topónimo olvidado: La Mancha de Montaragón by historian Aurelio Pretel Marín, some localities in the current provinces of Cuenca, Albacete, Valencia, Alicante and Murcia were part of the historical Mancha de Montearagón. This term was used to designate a broad frontier space in the east of the Crown of Castile during the Middle Ages, associated with the kingdoms of Toledo or New Castile and Murcia. Although called La Mancha, it should not be confused with the former province of La Mancha, nor with the region of La Mancha, as there is no connection beyond sharing the toponym. In the same study by Pretel Marín, localities historically new Castilian such as Requena, and Murcian such as Villena and Sax, along with Yecla, are also included on the eastern edge of Mancha de Montearagón.
Sometimes, Mancha Alta is expanded to include localities in the Toledan region of La Sagra, such as Esquivias, and even Madrid, which has frequently been described as a poblachón or lugarón manchego. However, this designation is linked to the misuse of the term manchego, as both in the past and present it is erroneously common for civil society and the media to refer to the entirety of Castilla–La Mancha and, in its day, New Castile, as La Mancha or manchego, when neither the entire region is La Mancha from the perspective of physical geography, nor from the historical perspective.
There are also other descriptions of La Mancha, such as those by Félix Pillet and Miguel Panadero in their studies for a geographical regionalization of Castilla–La Mancha from the perspective of physical geography, limiting La Mancha to "a great region or subregion of Castilla–La Mancha", turning it into a plain region covering 15,900 km2 and more than 90 municipalities. They present as transition regions Campo de Calatrava, Campo de Montiel, the land of Alarcón, La Manchuela and the Altiplanicie de Almansa, and as mountain regions, the Alcudia Valley, that of Alcaraz and that of Segura. This type of description is the most used by researchers and institutions in Castilla–La Mancha and Spain, as the term La Mancha prevails as a natural region delimited by a series of geographical aspects where the common denominator is the plain, as opposed to the administrative use of the former Province of La Mancha, now obsolete and with no correlation to the region of La Mancha, despite sharing the toponym.
It is also worth noting the importance of altitude in determining exactly what La Mancha is, ranging between 600 and 700 meters above sea level. One of the most widely accepted meanings is that La Mancha means 'elevated place', taking into account the altitude of Campo de Criptana in the heart of La Mancha, which is 707 metres above sea level. For example, the altitude of Puertollano, one of the last large towns in southern La Mancha, remains more or less constant at 708 metres. The altitudes of Cuenca, Toledo and Talavera, as well as other regions not linked to La Mancha, do not correspond to these altitudes. This demonstrates the importance of altitude in determining the geographical, rather than historical, boundaries of La Mancha.

Historical evolution of the toponym ''Mancha'' and its meaning

There are several theories about the origin of the toponym Mancha. Some relate it to the same Latin origin of the Spanish word "mancha", but more people believe that it has an Arabic origin. Some link it to the Arabic word "manxa", translated as "dry land", but there is a greater probability that it originates from the Arabic word "mányà", translated as "high plateau" and "elevated place".
Another much older theory also suggests that La Mancha comes from Arabic. The theory arises from the historian Jerónimo Zurita who states that another historian, Pero López de Ayala, knew that the land of Esparto was called Mancha by the Goths and that the Arabs kept the name Espartaria, which would be Manxa in Arabic. This Espartaria land is linked to the ancient Campo Espartario or Espartaria, of Carthagena Espartera, heir in turn to the Roman and Visigothic province of Hispania Carthaginensis, which encompassed much of present-day Castilla–La Mancha.
The earliest mentions of the toponym Mancha date from 1237, in agreements between the orders of Saint John and Santiago. In one case, it concerns the delineation of the boundaries of both orders: 'The Ruidera is held by the Friars of Uclés, who divided it in two with La Moraleja, running a rope from this landmark to the Mancha de Haver Garat. This reaches the other landmark between Criptana and Santa María de los Llanos. From this landmark, the valley goes up to the road from La Ruidera to Alhambra, turning towards Pozo del Allozo.' The other case involves a payment of cattle from the Commander of the Order of Santiago to the Commander of the Order of Saint John, as compensation for 'the help he received with the Guadiana water, which he drew through the Mancha de Montearagón'.
Apparently, the Mancha de Haver Garat refers to the later Mancha de Vejezate, a region comprising the towns of Tomelloso and Socuéllamos today, centered on the now depopulated Torre de Vejezate. The Mancha de Montearagón, originally "de Montaragón", would point to the territory extending from the Lakes of Ruidera eastward, through which one could travel to Aragon and the Kingdom of Valencia, which was under the full control of James I of Aragon at the time.
In 1282, Manuel of Castile, lord of Villena, received from the future king Sancho IV of Castile the extensive territories of Chinchilla, Jorquera and Ves, in the Mancha de Montearagón. Over time, with the expansion of these domains to Hellín and the land of Alarcón, according to Pretel Marín's conclusions, the geographical concept of the Montearagón region and the political concept of the Lordship of Villena were often confused and used interchangeably.
On the other hand, in 1353, the Master of the Order of Santiago, Fadrique Alfonso, attending to the request of various towns in the area under his Order's jurisdiction, created the Común de La Mancha, including territories of Mancha de Vejezate, with possessions between the rivers Guadiana and Gigüela and its capital in Quintanar de la Orden. Between 1478 and 1603 the following towns are described as belonging to the Común de La Mancha:
However, the concept of La Mancha at that time and in subsequent centuries was not limited to the Común de La Mancha and the Marquisate of Villena, but was more extensive, though not as much as it would later become. In the 1570s, in the Topographic Relations of Philip II, in addition to the localities of the ancient Común Santiaguista, then already a partido, the localities of Campo de San Juan are also mentioned as being in La Mancha. However, this is not the case in the Campo de Montiel towns, where only Membrilla is said to be in La Mancha, nor in the Campo de Calatrava towns, where only four are said to be in La Mancha. López-Salazar suggests that, in the case of Campo de Calatrava, the connection to the Maestrazgo de Calatrava or the district of Almagro was more significant than the geographical reference alone. Nevertheless, he also argues that La Mancha was not yet a well-known place name. Indeed, some towns claimed to be in La Mancha despite having less geographical justification than others that did not. Similar circumstances occurred in the Mancha de Montearagón, where, according to reports by Philip II, few places claimed to be located, preferring instead the name of the Marquisate of Villena, even after its disappearance. According to Petrel Marín, this was due to the Marquisate's greater political importance and the refusal of some towns that were never Aragonese but Castilian to be called 'de Aragón'.
In 1605, three decades after Philip II's Relaciones, Miguel de Cervantes published The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, and in 1615, its second part: Second part of the ingenious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha. It is a burlesque: the protagonists of his beloved chivalric romances, which inspire him, hail from noble countries and regions: Greece, France and Brittany, to name a few. Saying that Don Quixote is from La Mancha is not an attack on this region, but rather a humorous way of highlighting this character's presumptuousness at the beginning of the novel. However, the novel's enormous success also meant the 'success of the toponym' of the land in which it is set — the homeland of the protagonist, Don Quixote — according to López-Salazar. This success would also have meant the expansion of its boundaries.
In 1691, the province of La Mancha was established, incorporating the districts of Ciudad Real, Almagro, Villanueva de los Infantes, and Alcaraz. Initially, it excluded territories from the former Común de La Mancha, the Campo de San Juan, and the so-called Mancha de Aragón, though it did include areas beyond the geographical boundaries of the Manchego plain, such as the Sierra de Alcaraz and the region around Almadén. In 1785, several towns from the Mesa del Quintanar were added to the province, followed in 1799 by the district of the Grand Priory of St. John. This provincial division gained strong local acceptance, despite reform attempts during the Peninsular War, the Liberal Triennium, and ultimately the reign of Isabella II. In 1833, the territories of the former province of La Mancha were redistributed among the provinces of Jaén, Cuenca, Toledo, Albacete, and primarily Ciudad Real; the latter became popularly known for a time as the “province of La Mancha.”
Descriptions of La Mancha from the 19th century include that of Madoz. Notably, the province of Albacete, upon its creation in 1833, was attached to the historical Region of Murcia, with much of its territory having previously belonged to the Kingdom of Murcia. In contrast, the provinces of Ciudad Real, Cuenca, and Toledo were integrated into the region of the Kingdom of Toledo/New Castile, alongside Guadalajara and Madrid. During the 19th and 20th centuries, a Mancheguian regionalism movement emerged, advocating for a Manchegan Region comprising what it regarded as the four “Manchegan provinces”, though this effort yielded no results. Most of these provinces neither historically nor geographically constitute La Mancha proper. Early 20th-century Mancheguian regionalism broadened the use of the terms “La Mancha” and “Manchego” to encompass all four provinces.
During the Spanish transition to democracy, as Spain was divided into autonomous communities, extensive debates over boundaries and nomenclature led to the creation of Castilla–La Mancha, incorporating the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Toledo while separating the historical, cultural, and natural region of Madrid. Although Castilla–La Mancha comprises diverse subregions, La Mancha among them, media and everyday speech often erroneously refer to the community simply as “La Mancha” or abbreviate its demonym “castellano-manchego” to “manchego.” This usage has overshadowed other highland or foothill areas within Castilla–La Mancha.
Today, from a physical geography perspective, La Mancha is recognized as a natural region within the district division and associations of Castilla–La Mancha, despite lacking its own administrative entity. It comprises La Mancha in Ciudad Real, Toledo, and Cuenca, the Llanos de Albacete, and Mancha Júcar-Centro. La Mancha also features in several protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications bearing its name or its demonym, though production areas do not fully coincide.