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See Cordoba for other places with the same name.
Córdoba is a city in Andalusia, southern Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. Located at 37.88° North,
4.77° West, on the Guadalquivir river, it was founded in ancient Roman times as Corduba by Claudius Marcellus. Its population is
about 306,000 as of 2004.
Today a moderate sized modern city, the old town contains many impressive architectural reminders of when Córdoba was the
thriving capital of the Caliphate of Andalucia.
Córdoba was the birthplace of three famous philosophers: the Roman Stoic, Seneca, the Arab, Averroes, and the Jewish Maimonides. Córdoba was also the birthplace of the Roman poet, Lucan and (more recently) of several flamenco artists including
Paco Peña, Vicente Amigo
and Joaquin Cortes.
History of Cordoba
Roman Córdoba in Hispanica Baetica
In Roman times, the city had more cultural buildings than Rome. It was the Baetica's capital of the province of Hispania
Baetica. Remains of the Roman Temple built by Claudius Marcellus, the Roman Bridge (illustration, right) and other
Roman remains can still be seen around the city.
Caliphate of Cordoba
Córdoba was conquered by the Moors in 711, and
Moorish influence can still be felt in the city. During the time of Islamic rule, as the
seat of the Muawiya Caliphs, Cordoba was the largest city and embodied the most sophisticated culture and the most developed
bureaucracy in Europe. Córdoba reached its peak in the 10th century, under three great rulers: the first Caliph, Abd-ar-rahman III ("al-Nasir," 912 - 61), his son al-Hakam II (961 - 76) and the brilliant adventurer Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, more familiar as Almansor, "the
Victorious," (981 - 1002). The 10th century Caliphate of Cordoba was the largest, culturally the most sophisticated polity in all
Europe. Contemporary chroniclers, all of them Arabic, like the geographer Ibn Hawkal in 948, marvelled: the amount of coins in
circulation! the variety of crops grown! the people!— Cordoba may have had a quarter of a million people— the
textiles! the gardens! the mosques!— there were more than 1,000 mosques and 600 public baths.
The German Emperor Otto I sent his
emissaries to the Caliph; it never occurred to send anyone to the Kingdom
of Leon, which lay to the north.
But in the 1020s and 1030s the whole imposing political structure collapsed, fissioned into more than a dozen successor
statelets, known to historians as (the reinos de taifas) such as Seville,
Badajoz, Toledo, Zaragoza, Albarracín, Valencia, Almería and Granada. Heirs to the wealth of the Caliphate, their
instability and endemic hostilities among themselves, made them vulnerable to attacks from the Christian north. The history of
Cordoba after the mid 11th century shrinks to the story of the city and its immediate hinterland.
The most important monument in the city is the former Mosque (the 3rd largest mosque
in the world), known as the Mezquita. After the
conquest, the Christians built a cathedral in the middle of this large complex,
so it is two temples in one.
Another splendid monument is the city (in ruins) Madinat Al-Zahira. Important monuments are also the Alcazar, where in 1492, Christopher Columbus got permission
to travel to the "Indies". The califal baths and its churchs and typical streets of the
Jewish quarter Judería.
Christian Cordoba
Cordoba was retaken for Christianity as part of the Reconquista in 1236, and became a centre of
activity against the remaining Islamic population.
Surviving Renaissance monuments in Cordoba include the Palacio de Viana, the city's
Ducal Palace.
It is currently the only major Spanish city with a Communist mayor.
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