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Castilla-La Mancha (; Spanish: ; sometimes written in English as Castile–La Mancha) is a south-western European region that was part of the Kingdom of Castile. Nowadays it is established as an autonomous community of Spain. Castilla-La Mancha is bordered by Castilla y León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities. Albacete is the largest and most populous city. Its capital city is Toledo, and its judicial capital city is Albacete. Castilla-La Mancha was formerly grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile (''Castilla la Nueva''), but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of autonomous regions (''Estado de las autonomías''), it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces. Also, distinct from the former New Castile, Castilla-La Mancha added the province of Albacete, which had been part of Murcia; adding Albacete placed all of the historic region of La Mancha within this single region. It is mostly in this region where the story of the famous Spanish novel ''Don Quixote'' by Miguel de Cervantes is situated, due to which La Mancha is internationally well-known. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau, it remains a symbol of Spanish culture with its vineyards, sunflowers, mushrooms, olive plantations, windmills, Manchego cheese, and ''Don Quixote''. ==History== The history of Castilla-La Mancha has been significant. Its origin lay in the Muslim period between the 8th and 14th century. Castilla-La Mancha was the region of many historical battles between Christian crusaders and Muslim forces during the period from 1000 to the 13th century. It was also the region where the Crown of Castile and Aragon were unified in 1492 under Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand. Castilla-La Mancha is the successor to New Castile (''Castilla la Nueva''), which in turn traces back to the Muslim Taifa of Toledo, one of the ''taifas'' of Al Andalus. Alfonso VI conquered the region from the Muslims, taking Toledo in 1085. The ''Reconquista'' ("Reconquest") took Cuenca in 1177. Other provinces to the south—the Campo de Calatrava, the Valle de Alcudia, and the Alfoz de Alcaraz (Campo de Montiel and Sierra de Alcaraz)—were consolidated during the reign of Alfonso VIII (reigned 1158–1214), whose conquests were completed by the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). That victory assured Castilian domination of the region and hastened the decline of the Almohad Dynasty. From the time of the ''Reconquista'', Castilla-La Mancha formed part of the Kingdom of Castile. Four centuries later, in 1605, Cervantes' ''Don Quixote'' gave the world an indelible picture of La Mancha. In 1785, the territorial organization by the reformer Floridablanca divided the region into the provinces of Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid, La Mancha, and Toledo. Albacete, Chinchilla, Almansa, Hellín and Yeste, however, became part of Murcia. In 1833 Javier de Burgos modified the provincial borders; most of the province of La Mancha was transferred to the province of Ciudad Real, with smaller parts incorporated into the provinces of Cuenca, Toledo and the newly created province of Albacete. Albacete, in turn, also incorporated parts of the territories of the old provinces of Cuenca and Murcia. Albacete was administered as part of the Region of Murcia until the 1978 configuration of autonomous regions. Nonetheless, during the First Spanish Republic, Albacete was one of the signatories to the Pacto Federal Castellano (1869) and in 1924 its deputation favored the formation of a "Comunidad Manchega" that would have recognized La Mancha (including Albacete) as a region. The Autonomous Community of Castilla-La Mancha dates from November 15, 1978, as one of the many autonomous regions defined by the Spanish central government. (More precisely, each of these regions was initially a ''preautonomía'', a "pre-autonomous" region, until establishing its Statute of Autonomy). The new, hyphenated name constituted an effort to bridge two distinct regionalisms: that of the larger Castilla (extending beyond this autonomous region) and that of the smaller onetime province of La Mancha. The Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha was approved August 10, 1982 and took effect August 17, 1982.〔The statute is L.O. (orgánica, "organic law" ) 9/1982〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Castilla-La Mancha」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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