Village
Alcañiz is the capital of the Bajo Aragón, in the province of Teruel, with 16.505 inhabitants (INE 2025) and one of the few municipalities in the province with demographic growth against the depopulation of the rest of the territory. The Castillo Calatravo crowns the town, and its Gothic Lonja rises on the main square. It sits beside the Guadalope river, which winds around it in a meander; its name may come from the Arabic al-qannis, "the reeds or reed-beds". Its origin as a stable settlement is uncertain, although the current settlement appears to date from Muslim times; the first documented references date from 1157, when Ramon Berenguer IV reconquered it, after which it was lost again until the second reconquest by his son Alfonso II of Aragon. Within its municipal area is the MotorLand Aragón circuit.
Monument
The Calatrava castle of Alcañiz was granted in 1179 by Alfonso II of Aragon to the Order of Calatrava, which made it the head of its commandery. It preserves a medieval core of the 12th and 13th centuries with the keep, the chapel and a 14th-century cloister, decorated with early 14th-century Gothic frescoes depicting a cavalcade of Calatrava knights and the wheel of Fortune, one of the most important mural ensembles in Aragon. In the 18th century the Baroque palace of the Commanders was added, with a Renaissance façade completed in 1738. Declared a monument in 1925, it has been a Parador Nacional since 1968.
Monument
The lonja (exchange hall) of Alcañiz is a building of late Aragonese Gothic from the 15th century which, together with the Renaissance town hall and the collegiate church of Santa María, forms a monumental ensemble on the main square of the historic centre, inspired by Italian Gothic exchange halls. The ground floor opens through three large pointed arches —two with cusped tracery— decorated with smaller arcading on the intrados and covered with ribbed vaults; in the 16th century, when the town hall was built, an upper floor was added in the manner of an Aragonese gallery of round arches on columns, and in the 18th century it was topped with a deeply projecting eave with lunettes and oculi. Declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1931, its interior, much remodelled, today houses municipal administrative offices.
Monument
The collegiate church, which it was between 1407 and 1851, combines the remains of a Gothic building, built for the most part in the 13th century, with the large Baroque structure erected from 1736 onward over several decades. From the medieval building survives the great bell tower, one of the most notable of the former Crown of Aragón, raised as a symbol of municipal power facing that of the nearby Castillo Calatravo, with a dual civic-religious and defensive function. The Baroque work, with a facade of cathedral-like proportions, is the work of the architect Domingo de Yarza, also responsible for the Basilica of the Pilar in Zaragoza, and follows the hall-church model, with all three naves at the same height. It has been a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), with the category of Monument, since 1988.
Nature
The Guadalope is the second-longest right-bank tributary of the Ebro after the Jalón, with a course of 160 km and a basin of around 3890 km²; it is considered the best-regulated river in Aragon. It rises in the Sierra de Gúdar, near Villarroya de los Pinares and Miravete de la Sierra, and along its course it forms, besides the Santolea reservoir, those of Calanda and Civán, in Caspe. Its basin also contains the Estanca de Alcañiz wetland. The stretch that borders the city's historic centre receives waters already regulated by Santolea before adding the contributions of other tributaries on its way to the Ebro, to which it delivers around 58 hm³ a year.
Activity
Patron saint festivities of Alcañiz from 8 to 13 September, in honour of the Virgen de los Pueyos and the Santo Ángel Custodio. On the 9th a pilgrimage is held to the sanctuary of los Pueyos, and on the 10th a procession to the Calle de la Cueva, where tradition places the appearance of the Angel.
Monument
Museum in Alcañiz devoted to the history of the engine and technology.
Activity
MotorLand Aragón is a racing circuit and multifunctional motorsport complex located about 8 kilometres from Alcañiz, in the province of Teruel. It hosts the Aragon Grand Prix of motorcycling, as well as rounds of the Superbike World Championship, the Spanish Touring Car Championship and the European Le Mans Series. It covers 350 hectares, more than the adjacent municipality itself, and brings together six circuits: the speed circuit, designed by German engineer Hermann Tilke, with layouts for motorcycling and motor racing; an international karting circuit; and four dirt tracks for autocross, dirt-track, supermoto and motocross. It also includes the 21-hectare TechnoPark MotorLand, devoted to research into mobility and road safety.
Historical milestone
In 1157 Ramón Berenguer IV granted Alcañiz a settlement charter that fixed the rights of the new settlers. The document served as a model for other towns of the Bajo Aragón and was the legal basis of the council for centuries.
Historical milestone
In 1412 the representatives of the Generalidad de Aragón, meeting in Alcañiz, and those of Catalonia, meeting in Tortosa, reached on 15 February the Concordia de Alcañiz, the agreement that established the procedure for electing a successor to Martín I de Aragón, who had died without an heir. Its very pragmatic articles entrusted nine commissioners, representing the whole Crown of Aragon, with electing a king, within a period of two to three months, from among the candidates gathered in the Aragonese town of Caspe: the process that culminated weeks later in the Compromiso de Caspe. The Concordia was important because it set an effective protocol for appointing a king within a reasonable time, after more than twenty months had passed without agreement since the death of Martín I on 31 May 1410.
Historical milestone
After the Napoleonic invasion of 1808 and the French victories at Tudela and Somosierra, Aragon fell under French control: on 26 January 1809 General Watier stormed Alcañiz, crushing the resistance of a militia of volunteers among its 4,000 inhabitants. On 20 May the Ejército de Aragón y Valencia arrived in the city, with 8,500 infantry, 500 cavalry and 19 cannon under the command of Joaquín Blake, before whom the French troops withdrew without fighting as far as Híjar. Blake took up positions on the heights northwest of the city, with the infantry concealed in an olive grove, the cavalry under Ibarrola's command and other troops on the Cerro Perdiguer, and on 23 May 1809 he defeated the army of Marshal Suchet in a key victory of the War of Independence in the region.
Historical milestone
On 3 March 1938 the Italian air force, serving the rebel side, bombed the city, then behind the republican front, causing a massacre among the civilian population. The attack remained one of the most serious episodes of the Aragon front. It took place between the end of the Battle of Teruel, on 22 February, and the start of the Aragon offensive, on 7 March, over a city that was not a military target. Fifteen Savoia-Marchetti S.79 bombers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ranieri Cupini and coming from the Agoncillo airfield near Logroño, dropped in barely two minutes, starting at 16:10, fifty bombs of one hundred kilos and one hundred twenty of fifty kilos; since the sirens did not sound, they fell on the most crowded places.
Historical milestone
In the sixteenth century Alcañiz lived a notable intellectual moment with figures such as Juan Sobrarias and Juan Lorenzo Palmireno, humanists and educators linked to the teaching of Latin and to the university printing of their time.
Food and drink
The protected designation of origin Aceite del Bajo Aragón covers oils made with a minimum of eighty percent empeltre olives. The zone gathers the greatest density of olive groves in Aragon and the oil is milled in mills of the comarca itself.
Food and drink
A fry-up of pepper, tomato, onion and courgette from the huerta watered by the Guadalope, served on its own or with egg. It is the city's most characteristic summer dish and also accompanies roasts and salted fish.