The decision to choose a strategic site for founding a village, which was so customary in ancient civilizations, is strikingly evident in the case of Archidona. Its urban district grew up under the protection of the El Conjuro peak (1,012 metres) and the Gracia and Las Grajas mountain ranges, which are more than 900 metres high. The locality not only benefited from, and suffered the consequences of, its watchtower-like location overlooking an extensive territory but also from its situation in the natural pass that linked the cities of Granada and Seville.

Traces of the presence of prehistoric man in the region have been found in several caves in the El Conjuro mountains but it was the Phoenicians who, with their society already organized, settled in these lands and started construction on the walls of the city (to which there are later Carthaginian, Roman and Arabic additions) and who called it Ascua. The Romans changed the name to Arx Domina, which under the Arabs evolved into Medina Arxiduna.

From the time of the expulsion of the Carthaginians Archidona belonged to Andalusia and experienced a period of great expansion, a bonanza that ended with the Germanic invasion. The area began a period of recovery with the arrival of the Arabs that would have it rank as one of the most important cities in Andalusia during the first Islamic era, when it came to be the capital of what is today the province of Málaga. During the uprising headed by Omar Ben Hafsun in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, Archidona lived through some turbulent years, until in 907 the Emir Abd Allah conquered it. Now under the Caliphate of Córdoba, there were again years of prosperity with the development of agriculture and commerce. It is noteworthy that it was in Archidona in the year 756 that Abd al-Rahman I, the only survivor of the Omeya dynasty, was crowned as the first independent emir of Damascus. With the division of Muslim power among the Taifas kingdoms and the many resultant confrontations, however, ruin and abandonment overcame these lands until in 1238 they came under the Nazarite kingdom of Granada.

After a period of relative calm came political stability and an economic reawakening of the region, which lasted until the first probing movements by the relentless Christian troops who were preparing for the conquest of Granada after the surrender of the adjacent territories. It would be another half century after the fall of Antequera in 1410 before Archidona finally passed into Christian hands on July 28, 1462. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the village began to form the urban layout, that with few changes, we know today.

Surface Area: 187.1 square kilometres
Population: about 8,500
What the natives are called: Archidoneses
Monuments: the Ochavada plaza, Las Mínimas convent, La Victoria church, La Cilla building, the hermitages of Nuestra Señora de Gracia, San Antonio, and El Nazareno, the Santa Ana church, Santo Domingo convent and the ruins of the medieval castle.
Geographical Location: in the northeast part of the province of Málaga, in the Antequera region and adjoining the province of Granada. The village centre is 50 kilometres from the city of Málaga and 20 from Antequera. It sits 716 metres above sea level and the average annual rainfall is nearly 600 litres per square metre. The average temperature is 15º C.
Tourist Information: Town Hall, Paseo de la Victoria, 1 (29300). Telephone: 952 714 480; Fax: 952 714 165. Tourist Office, Plaza Ochavada, 2. Telephone: 952 716 479.

 

How to Get There

The N-331 (A-45) leads straight from Málaga to the A-92, which is the route that must be followed towards Granada to get to the A-6200 turning that leads to Archidona.