Parauta

Interesting Facts of Parauta

Surface Area: 44.2 square kilometres

Population: 242

What the natives are called: Parauteños

Outstanding Sights: Inmaculada Concepción church, Valdecilla evergreen oak tree, Sierra de las Nieves Nature Park

Geographical Location: in the eastern part of the Ronda region. The municipality borders the Guadalhorce valley region and the Western Costa del Sol. The village is 800 metres above sea level and is 105 kilometres from the provincial capital. The area records an average annual rainfall of 1,300 litres per square metre and the average temperature is about 14º C.
 

This municipality’s territory lies in the southern Oreganal mountain range, from which it stretches into the River Genal valley, and on the east extends into the Parque Natural de la Sierra de las Nieves (Sierra de las Nieves Nature Park), the location of the Parauta Spanish fir forest, in which the Spin fir of Escaleteras stands out, as it an unusually big tree of this native species. It is a very varied territory, in which areas of rocks and sparse plant cover, alternate with others with abundant vegetation (chestnut trees, live oak groves, pine and olive trees). In addition, there is the area of exceptional ecological interest that is included in the Sierra de las Nieves. Parauta was designated Ecological Municipality in 1999.

According to some historians Parauta was formed by the joining of two villages, Parauta proper and Benahazín, which was located near Cartajima and for reasons that have not been explained added its territory to Parauta and ceased to exist as a village. Due to the scarcity of historical documentation about the village’s origin, everything about it is conjecture. Some of it has a solid base-such as the theory that the village was founded by the Arabs, which is hardly open to question when one looks at the street plan of the locality-and some of it more tenuous, such as the assertion that this village was the birthplace of the Muladí chieftain Omar Ben Hafsun, who gave the Caliphate of Cordoba so many headaches in the tenth century. This theory is considered increasingly unlikely.

Otherwise, it is reasonable to believe that the history of Parauta must have been tightly linked to that of the closest villages, as there is no chronicle of any kind of any special event that occurred in this locality.