Village
Alagón is the head town of the comarca of Ribera Alta del Ebro, in the province of Zaragoza, within the capital's metropolitan area, 26 kilometres from it. It has around 7,500 inhabitants. It sits on a gentle hill in the interfluve formed by the Ebro and its tributary the Jalón, which flows into it nearby at Torres de Berrellén, giving it an extensive irrigated plain. A few kilometres away runs the Canal Imperial de Aragón, built in the 18th century, which crosses the río Jalón by means of the Jalón aqueduct. The climate is semi-arid continental Mediterranean, with cool winters, frequent frosts and persistent fog in December and January. The village preserves the church of San Pedro and the hermitage of the Virgin of the Castle.
Monument
The church of San Pedro Apóstol stands on a hillock, at the highest point of the town of Alagón, next to the church of Our Lady of the Castle. Construction began in the 13th century and finished in the 14th, except for the tower, which made use of the minaret of the mosque that had previously occupied the site. It follows the type of the Mudéjar church with a wide single brick nave, to which a bay for the raised choir and two side chapels were added at the end of the 15th century. Its tower, octagonal in plan and with the tower-and-counter-tower structure typical of Aragonese Mudéjar architecture, is considered one of the finest examples in Aragón and forms a group with those of Tauste, Pradilla and San Pablo de Zaragoza. It preserves the altarpiece of the Santo Cristo, from around 1470, of German influence.
Monument
A hermitage in Alagón linked to the town's former castle.
Nature
The riverside woods and banks of the Ebro as it passes Alagón, capital of the comarca.
Curiosity
Aragonese Mudéjar architecture, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, found in Alagón, Remolinos and Pedrola.
Activity
The patron saint festivities of Alagón are held on 8 and 9 September in honour of Nuestra Señora del Castillo, with mass at the hermitage, a procession through the streets and the performance of the Dance of Moors and Christians, linked to the appearance of the Virgin to Alfonso I the Battler in 1119.
Monument
Alagón preserves, besides the church of San Pedro, the church of Nuestra Señora del Castillo; the town occupies the site of the Iberian city of Alaun, later called Allabone in Roman times, and was taken by Alfonso I in 1119.
Monument
The Mudéjar tower of the church of San Pedro in Alagón reuses the old minaret of the town's mosque, taken by Alfonso I in 1119; it is one of the examples of Aragonese Mudéjar architecture declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Nature
In the fertile valley where the Jalón flows into the Ebro sits Alagón, which occupies the site of the Iberian city of Alaun, later called Allabone in Roman times; taken by Alfonso I in 1119, it retains from that frontier stronghold the tower-minaret of its former mosque, reused as a Christian bell tower.
Activity
Alagón's winter festival is held in a town that preserves a Baroque school built by the Jesuits in the 18th century, left empty after their expulsion in 1767, and which shares with Remolinos and Pedrola the Mudéjar legacy declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
Historical milestone
Beneath the urban centre of Alagón lies the Iberian city of Alaun, which minted its own coinage and came to be called Allabone in Roman times. Its position at the confluence of the Jalón with the Ebro made it an obligatory point of passage in the valley.
Historical milestone
Alagón, a prominent stronghold of the Upper March of al-Andalus for four centuries, was taken by Alfonso I the Battler in 1119, a year after the fall of Zaragoza. The minaret tower of the mosque was reused as a Christian bell tower.
Historical milestone
The Society of Jesus raised in Alagón during the eighteenth century a Baroque college with its own church, intended for the education of the sons of the comarca. It was left empty after the expulsion of the Jesuits decreed by Carlos III in 1767.
Historical milestone
The sugar factory of Alagón, raised in 1900, is one of the catalogued examples of Aragonese industrial architecture. It formed part of the sugar beet cycle that transformed the irrigated agriculture of the middle Ebro valley at the beginning of the twentieth century.