Village
Cortes de Pallás is a municipality of the comarca of El Valle de Cofrentes-Ayora, in the province of Valencia, with 727 inhabitants (INE 2025) and a Spanish-speaking majority. Its name may derive from the Latin curtare, after the 400-metre gash that the Júcar river has carved into the Caroig massif; the Pallás element comes from a personal name from a Catalan comarca neighbouring the Ribagorça. The municipality is dominated by its terrain: to the north the sierra Martés, with the Pico Martés (1,085 m), its highest point; to the south the Muela de Cortes, a National Big Game Reserve since 1973. The Júcar river, the one with the greatest flow in the Comunitat Valenciana, forms a canyon harnessed by the El Naranjero and Cortes-La Muela reservoirs. Within its territory lie the Castillo de Chirel and several scattered hamlets.
Monument
Chirel Castle, in Cortes de Pallás (Valencia), is a fortress of Arab origin whose importance during the Al-Azraq revolt is documented, and which was improved after the arrival of the Christians; it is already mentioned in 1349 in an order concerning the provisioning of fortresses, and based on its building techniques its first reconstructions are believed to date from the 15th century. It stands on the muela of the Cinto del Castillo, on a rocky site to which it adapts with a triangular plan; it retains the double defensive wall, a cistern and the main tower, as well as two smaller towers, one trapezoidal and the other square with a barrel vault. The access crossed a raised passage with a pointed arch on the outside and a round arch on the inside. Despite being a BIC (Bien de Interés Cultural, Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it appears on the Red List of Hispania Nostra.
Nature
Large natural plateau at an altitude of between 800 and 900 metres, occupying the southern half of the municipal term of Cortes de Pallás, bounded by the gorges of the Júcar to the east and north, the Sácaras valley to the west and deep ravines towards the Caroche to the south. Its highest point is El Pisar, at 1,015 metres, on the Cinto Cabra. It is a Cretaceous massif formed of limestone alternating with gypsum and clay. Since 1973 it has been a national hunting reserve of 36,009 hectares, home to Iberian wild goat, mouflon, wild boar, red deer, fallow deer and red-legged partridge. Only 6% of the land is agricultural, mostly olive groves, and it contains an upper reservoir of 23 hm³, built in 1988, part of a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant with an output of 1,772 MW.
Activity
Cortes de Pallás celebrates its patronal festival in the second week of August, in honour of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, the Assumption, the Cristo de la Vida and San Isidro Labrador, with the election of an adult and a children's festival queen.
Monument
Parish church of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Cortes de Pallás, built in 1775 in a village that, wedged into the Júcar canyon beneath a four-hundred-meter cliff, had no direct road until 1932.
Monument
18th-century Baroque palace in Cortes de Pallás, the municipality's former manorial residence.
Nature
The Cueva Hermosa, of karstic formation and with numerous chambers, is located in the Barranco del Ral, in the municipal district of Cortes de Pallás, just twenty metres from the nearby Cueva del Alba, with which it very likely was connected at some point in the past.
Nature
Pools formed by the fluvial erosion of the river Júcar in the municipal district of Cortes de Pallás.
Nature
Series of waterfalls that feed the river Júcar in the municipal district of Cortes de Pallás.
Curiosity
During the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, a group of rebels held out for nearly a month on the Muela de Cortes against the royal forces. The insurgents, who had first gathered at Teresa de Cofrentes, decided to fortify themselves on the muela, and were gradually joined by fellow believers from Jalance, Jarafuel, Bicorp, Cofrentes and Dos Aguas, among other places. They were confronted by the Tercio de Lombardía, the troops of the governor of Játiva and other local forces. The bulk of the rebels surrendered on 21 November 1609 and were taken to the Grao de Valencia for their expulsion; their leader, Turixí, was executed in the city. Over the following two years, small groups continued to hold out on the muela.
Monument
Housed in a former washhouse, this centre explains the system of channels, ponds and irrigated plots carved out by Muslims and Moriscos, one of the best preserved traditional irrigation systems in Europe.
Nature
Ravine with several waterfalls and cascades, among them El Corbinet, las Tres Cascadas and those of the Fuente de San Vicente, part of the municipality's rich hydraulic and historical heritage.
Historical milestone
The town, wedged into the canyon of the Júcar below a four-hundred-metre cliff, had no direct road until 1932. Until then everything came in and went out by bridle paths, which explains the preservation of its houses and of its way of life.
Historical milestone
The use of the fall of the Júcar gave rise to a pumped-storage plant that stores energy by raising water to an upper reservoir on the plateau. Enlarged in 2013, it is among the largest installations of this kind in Europe.
Food and drink
The olive and the almond are the only crops that thrive on the stone terraces hanging over the canyon of the Júcar. Harvesting is still done by hand because of the roughness of the terrain and the olives are pressed in mills of the comarca itself.