Empordà

Empordà
Natural region
Landscape of the Montgrí Massif in the Empordà region.
A map of Catalonia showing the Empordà location
Country	Catalonia, Spain
Elevation	40 m (130 ft)

Empordà (Catalan: [əmpuɾˈða]; Spanish: Ampurdán [ampuɾˈðan]) is a natural and historical region of Catalonia, Spain, divided since 1936 into two comarques, Alt Empordà and Baix Empordà.

The city of Figueres, an important urban and economic center of the Empordà, was designated the capital of Alt Empordà, while La Bisbal d'Empordà, following a more geographic and historical criteria, became the capital of Baix Empordà.

Empordà has been the cradle for many pictoric schools, with surrealism standing out, including artists such as Salvador Dalí, Angel Planells, Joan Massanet and Evarist Vallès.

Etymology

The name Empordà is a derivative of Empúries (Empòrion in Old Greek or Emporiae in Latin), which means "the markets".

The name Empordà comes from a succession of phonetic derivatives of County of Empúries, a county which had its capital first in Sant Martí d'Empúries and then in Castelló d'Empúries the capital of medieval Empordà during the period of political splendor of this county. This was one of the most insurgent toward royal power and one of the last ones to join the Crown of Aragon, which led to a few odd episodes such as the deviation of the Ter (river) or the unfinished build of the Montgrí Castle on top of the Montgrí Massif.

The Baix Empordà born writer

History

The region was already inhabited in the prehistory. There are a number of caves that served as a shelter for paleolithic men in the

.

The Greeks established themselves very close to the actual region, in Roses (possibly a colony of Rhodes, though this is uncertain) in the 8th century BC and in Empúries at the beginning of the 6th century BC.

The Iberians built one of their main cities in Ullastret in the 6th century BC; the name of the tribe was Indigetes. But with the arrival of the Romans, a process of transformation was initiated that changed the occupational system and the economic exploitation of the territory, which led to the abandonment of Ullastret in the 2nd century BC.

The Baix Empordà was Romanized like all other places of the Roman Empire but that was followed by barbaric invasions in the 3rd and 5th centuries that notably impoverished the region and reduced their urban centers to the minimum expression.

There are many traces of the Romanization, but it is hard to envision the print of the

caused the creation of independent counties ruled by feudal lords. The Muslim invasion actually lasted less than sixty years (714–785) and the old Hispano-Gothic population came back.

The administrative division of the

References

External links

• Club de Polo Ampurdan
• Media related to Empordà at Wikimedia Commons

42°04′55″N 3°04′19″E / 42.08194°N 3.07194°E / 42.08194; 3.07194