Village
Main city of La Campiña, definitively conquered by Alfonso X the Wise on 9 October 1264. With 1,188 km2, its municipal area is the second largest in Andalusia; the Andalusian Parliament recognised it as a 'city of large population' on 27 May 2009. World capital of sherry wine, the horse, and flamenco.
Monument
Almohad fortification from the 12th-13th centuries with later additions up to the 18th. It was declared Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985) by decree of 3 June 1931, a category that, with the Spanish Historical Heritage Law 16/1985, was transformed into Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Former collegiate church of El Salvador, raised to cathedral status in 1980, built between the 17th and 18th centuries on the site of the main mosque; it forms part of the Conjunto Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985), today Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC), of central Jerez.
Monument
Carthusian monastery founded in the 15th century, with a 16th-century Plateresque façade; it was affected by the Mendizábal disentailment of 1837, which dispersed part of its Zurbarán paintings, now divided between the Museum of Cádiz and the Grenoble Museum.
Activity
Classical dressage school founded in 1973 by Álvaro Domecq, famous for its show 'How the Andalusian Horses Dance'.
Activity
Jerez's spring fair, with a deep equestrian tradition, declared a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 1980.
Activity
Circuit opened in December 1985, which first hosted the Spanish Motorcycle Grand Prix in 1987, and has done so uninterruptedly since 1989.
Historical milestone
The Jerez-El Puerto de Santa María line, opened in 1854, was the first railway in Andalusia.
Curiosity
On 21 May 1890 Jerez became the first Spanish city to have public electric lighting.
Food and drink
Fortified wines protected under the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry Denomination of Origin (fino, oloroso, amontillado, palo cortado, pedro ximénez), produced in the city's historic bodegas, along with Jerez brandy.
Nature
Protected steppe wetland in the Jerez countryside, a refuge for wintering waterbirds, connected to the city by the 13 km 'Ruta de la Puerta Verde' (Green Gate Route).
Monument
Gothic-Renaissance church in Jerez, one of the city's great historic parishes alongside the Cathedral, with a Baroque facade added in the 18th century and an unfinished tower.
Monument
Church of Jerez raised to the rank of basilica, one of the landmark religious buildings of Jerez's historic center.
Monument
Civil building located on the Plaza de la Asunción, the former seat of Jerez's municipal council, one of the best-preserved Plateresque-Renaissance complexes in the city.
Monument
Nasrid palace incorporated into the Alcázar de Jerez complex, built over the chambers of the former Almohad alcázar.
Monument
Remains of Jerez's Almohad walled enclosure, with stretches of wall and defensive towers preserved at various points in the historic center.
Nature
The northern end of the Los Alcornocales natural park, declared in 1989 and covering 167,767 hectares, extends into the term of Jerez through the Montes de Propio. It is the largest cork oak forest in Spain and also holds relict subtropical vegetation gorges (canutos).
Nature
410-meter elevation in the term of Jerez de la Frontera, the most prominent point in the municipality's relief amid the countryside.
Historical milestone
Between 19 and 26 July of the year 711, near Jerez, the Visigothic army of King Roderic was defeated by the troops of Tariq, an episode that marked the beginning of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
Historical milestone
In 1231 the infante Alfonso (the future Alfonso X the Wise) defeated Muslim troops near Jerez, three decades before the city's definitive conquest.
Historical milestone
On 9 October 1264 Alfonso X the Wise completed the definitive conquest of Jerez, which was incorporated into the Crown of Castile; some studies place this episode in 1266. In 1465 Henry IV of Castile granted the city the title "very noble and very loyal".
Historical milestone
During the Peninsular War, Napoleonic troops occupied Jerez de la Frontera between 4 February 1810 and 26 August 1812.
Historical milestone
Between 1859 and 1890 an animal-drawn tramway ran through Jerez, considered the first in Spain, an urban forerunner of the railway known as "la maquinilla" that reached the city in 1870.
Historical milestone
Between 1882 and 1884, the Jerez district was the setting of the court case against the alleged anarchist secret society "La Mano Negra", one of the most controversial episodes of the 19th-century Andalusian farmworkers' movement.
Historical milestone
Archaeological site in the term of Jerez that was a Tartessian city founded around 1200 BC and remained inhabited in the Roman period. The Museo de Jerez preserves pieces found there, including an Ibero-Roman sculpture of a lion.
Curiosity
Modernist kiosk topped by a weathervane shaped like a blue rooster, one of the most photographed and recognizable elements of central Jerez, which has given its name to the square where it stands.
Curiosity
In 1841 Jerez de la Frontera created its local police force, the second to be organized in Spain after that of Madrid.
Curiosity
Christmas festival in Jerez in which groups of townspeople sing popular carols in courtyards, squares and bars to the sound of the zambomba (friction drum), tambourines and anise bottles, in a tradition rooted in the 18th century. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural in 2015 and included in the General Catalogue of Andalusian Historical Heritage.
Curiosity
The Jerez winery González Byass, founded in 1835 by Manuel María González Ángel, installed in 1920 its famous illuminated Tío Pepe advertisement -a figure with a guitar, short jacket and Andalusian hat- at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where it has remained a Spanish advertising icon.
Historical milestone
In the late 15th century the Carthusian monks settled in Jerez founded, on the Fuente del Suero estate next to the Cartuja monastery, the oldest horse-breeding operation in the world dedicated to the Cartujano horse, a genetic reserve of the Pura Raza Española. After the disentailment (desamortización), the priest Pedro José Zapata saved about 60 mares and 3 stallions, and his identifying brand -the "Hierro del Bocado"- gives the stud farm its name, today managed by the public company EXPASA.
Activity
International festival of flamenco and Spanish dance born in the late 1990s (the 2027 edition will be the thirty-first), held every year between February and March with performances by artists and dance masterclasses.