Everything about Jaca totally explained
Jaca (
Chaca in
Aragonese) is a
city of northeastern
Spain near the border with
France, in the midst of the
Pyrenees in the province of
Huesca. Jaca, a ford on the
Aragón River at the crossing of two great early medieval routes, one from
Pau to
Zaragoza, was the fortified city out of which the
County and
Kingdom of Aragon developed: Jaca was the capital of Aragon until
1097 and also served as capital of
Jacetania.
Jaca had, in 2004, 12,322 residents and is a premier
tourist destination in the region for
summer holidays and
winter sport. Jaca was the host city of the
1981 and
1995 Winter
Universiades. Its popularity for winter sports has been a motivating factor in the city's failed bids for the
1998 Winter Olympics,
2002 Winter Olympics and
2010 Winter Olympics. It was again the applicant city of
Spain for the
2014 Winter Olympics, but the bid failed again when it wasn't selected as a candidate city.
Jaca, an episcopal see in the
Roman Catholic Church since
1063 (External Link
), is home to
medieval walls and towers surrounding an
11th century Romanesque cathedral.
The origins of the city are obscure, but its name apparently reflects the Iaccetani, mentioned by
Strabo as one of the most celebrated of the numerous small tribes inhabiting the basin of the
Ebro. Strabo adds that their territory was the scene of the wars in the 1st century B.C.E between
Sertorius and
Pompey. The Moorish writers mention
Dyaka as one of the chief places in the province of Sarkosta (Zaragoza). When it was
reconquered is unknown.
Ramiro I of Aragon (1035 - 1063), gave it the title of " city," and in 1063 held within its walls a council, in which, the people were called in to sanction its decrees: an early milestone in the parliamentary traditions in the Pyrenees.
The mutiny of the garrison at Jaca, demanding the abolition of monarchy and a democratic republic,
December 12–
13,
1930, was suppressed with some difficulty. It was an early event that prestaged the
Spanish Civil War.
The Diocesan Museum of Jaca (Museum of Medieval Sacred Art) protects Romanesque and Gothic frescoes from some of the most remote locations in the district of Jaca, unsuspected until the first one was discovered in the Church of Urriés, in 1962, where it had been hidden and protected by the painted and gilded retable, or altarpiece.
The Jaca citadel is home to a colony of
Rock Sparrows.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Jaca'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://jaca.totallyexplained.com">Jaca Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
