Village
Mequinenza is a town in the province of Zaragoza, in the Bajo Cinca, crowned by its Gothic castle, situated at the confluence of the Ebro and Segre rivers, which shortly before has already received the waters of the Cinca, at the eastern edge of the province, next to the boundaries with Huesca and Lérida. Its municipal area, covering 307.45 km², has 2,236 inhabitants (INE 2025) and belongs to the Franja de Aragón, a Catalan-speaking area. The castle originates from an 8th-century defensive settlement of the Miknasa, a Berber tribe that gave the town its name. The town lies between the Mequinenza reservoir, known as the Mar de Aragón and built between 1957 and 1964, and the Ribarroja reservoir. In February the festivals of San Blas and Santa Águeda are celebrated, with a fancy-dress contest of Interés Turístico de Aragón (official tourism-interest designation in Aragón).
Monument
One of the most important examples of Gothic architecture in Aragon, a former Muslim fortress taken by Ramón Berenguer IV and turned into a palace-castle by the Moncada family.
Monument
The parish church of Mequinenza, dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, stands on the shore of the Ribarroja reservoir. Charles IV authorized its construction in 1802, to a design by the architect José de Yarza in Renaissance style; work began the following year and continued until 1808. The municipality also preserved two other chapels, the hermitage of the saints Cosme and Damián and the hermitage of Santa Agatoclia.
Nature
The Mequinenza reservoir, known as the sea of Aragon, was formed in 1966 by damming the Ebro near this town in the province of Zaragoza, shortly after the river receives the waters of the Segre and the Cinca. It is the largest reservoir in Aragon, with 7540 hectares of water surface and a volume of 1530 hm³, used for the production of electric power. It has an average width of 600 metres and a depth exceeding 60 metres, and is closed off by a dam 79 metres high resting on the Montenegre and La Huerta sierras. Its waters also flood part of the municipal terms of Fraga, Caspe, Chiprana, Sástago and Escatrón, and even serve as the boundary between the provinces of Huesca and Zaragoza.
Activity
Festivities of San Blas and Santa Águeda of Mequinenza, in February, with a handmade-costume contest declared a Fiesta of Tourist Interest of Aragón.
Activity
The winter festivals of Mequinenza, in the comarca of Bajo Cinca (Zaragoza), are held in February in honour of San Blas and Santa Águeda. Their most notable event is a competition of handmade fancy-dress costumes, declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico de Aragón (official distinction for festivals of touristic interest in Aragón), in which the villagers themselves make their own costumes. It is one of the most distinctive dates in the village's festive calendar, bringing the community together in the depths of winter around this tradition of ingenuity and craftsmanship.
Monument
The Museo de la Historia de Mequinenza is part of the complex of the Museos de Mequinenza, on Avenida María Quintana, and occupies the former Grupo Escolar María Quintana, a 1927 building by Jorge Gallegos and Antonio Flórez, with an E-shaped floor plan, built of ashlar and roofed with Arab tiles. Its displays trace the history of the municipality and its link with the three rivers that meet in the town — the Ebro, Segre and Cinca — and its strategic role, crowned by the castle. It devotes a section to the abandonment and relocation of the Pueblo Viejo after the construction of the Ribarroja reservoir, and houses the Espacio Moncada, devoted to the literary, photographic and pictorial heritage of the writer Jesús Moncada.
Nature
The Mequinenza reservoir floods the course of the Ebro as it passes through the Bajo Cinca area of Zaragoza province, at the confluence with the Segre and Cinca rivers, known as the Aiguabarreig. Built in 1966, it is the largest reservoir in Aragón, with 7540 hectares of water surface and a capacity of 1530 hm³. Known as the Sea of Aragón, it is home to more than 50 million fish, mainly carp, crucian carp and bleak, as well as catfish and black bass, and hosts more than 30 fishing competitions each year, including the National Championship. It is also a venue for canoeing, sailing and powerboating.
Nature
The viewpoint over the confluence of the Ebro and the Segre is located in Mequinenza Castle, a Gothic fortress from the late 14th and early 15th centuries built by the Moncada family atop a hill where the Cinca also meets the other rivers, on the border between Aragon and Catalonia. The enclosure retains six rectangular towers and a seventh, pentagonal one added in the 17th century. Because of its strategic position it was the scene of episodes such as the captivity of Charles II of Anjou in 1288 and its capture by the French general Suchet during the Peninsular War, in 1810; it later served as a military barracks during the 19th century and was restored by the architect Adolfo Florensa in 1959. Today it is municipal property and can be visited with a guide.
Activity
Sport-fishing fair in Mequinenza, a European benchmark for catfish fishing.
Curiosity
On 1 February 1984 the Declaration of Mequinenza was signed in Mequinenza, a document signed by the mayors of seventeen Catalan-speaking municipalities of Aragon together with the Culture Councillor José Bada Paniello, which claimed Catalan as the language proper to the Franja Oriental and rejected terms such as chapurreau to refer to it. It called for the language to be taught as an optional subject in schools, which was achieved on 1 October 1985 through an agreement between the Government of Aragon and the Ministry of Education. Later laws, from 2009 and 2013, recognised Catalan and Aragonese as languages proper to the community, though not without controversy over their official designation.
Monument
The historic centre of Mequinenza occupied the left bank of the Ebro, at its confluence with the Segre and the Cinca, with an urban layout of Muslim origin. The construction of the Mequinenza and Ribarroja reservoirs forced the abandonment of the thousand-year-old town: by around 1974 most of its inhabitants had already moved to the new settlement built some kilometres away. The old María Quintana school, from 1929, one of the few buildings that were saved, is today home to the Museums of Mequinenza. The remains of the old town, above the waterline, can be visited as an open-air memorial park.
Activity
Fair devoted to catfish fishing in the Mequinenza reservoir.
Historical milestone
On 15 May 1810 the French troops of General Suchet began the attack on the fortress of Mequinenza, key to control of the Ebro. The garrison capitulated on 8 June and the name of the stronghold was engraved on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Historical milestone
The lignite basin of Mequinenza was worked intensively from the end of the nineteenth century. La Carbonífera del Ebro, founded in 1880, attracted miners from all over Spain: the population went from some 2,400 inhabitants in 1900 to more than 4,200 in 1920.
Historical milestone
In July and August 1938, during the battle of the Ebro, the Republican units that crossed the river opposite Mequinenza were trapped at the position of Auts. The sector ended with some three thousand casualties and was one of the worst disasters of the offensive.
Historical milestone
The dams of Mequinenza and Riba-roja, built between 1957 and 1974, made it necessary to demolish the old town and move the residents to a new town. The writer Jesús Moncada turned that disappearance into literary material in Camino de sirga.