Located in the northwest of the province of Seville, to 75 kilometers of the capital, the villa of Almadén of the Silver appears nailed between the rivers Viar and Cala, in the heat of heart of the Natural Park of the Sevillian Brown Mountain range, to an altitude superior to the 500 meters on the level of the sea.
The total population of the municipality promoted 1,696 inhabitants in 1.996.
The origins of the locality go back to Neolithic and the Calcolítico, according to the found older archaeological vestiges in the zone. Much but abundant they are the rest pertaining to the times Roman and Arab, between which marmorarius emphasizes epígrafe Roman allusive to a "Pagus". Under the Arab time, one fortified like outpost and defense of Seville. At that time it obtained his name of Al-Madin (the Mine), which the complement "of the Silver" was added after Reconquista to mark the difference with respect to other towns denominated equally Almadén. Fernando III gave to the population the Puebla Letter granting with it the right to show his shield with the castle and the lion of the real arms.
The original nucleus arises supported in the passage of highway of local or regional importance 421, forming a small enclosure in form of almond, oriented of this a the west and in one of whose ends the Parochial Church of Santa Maria de Gracia is located. The first expansions go towards the south and the southwest, in the direction of the Hill of the Calvario that, like the original nucleus, leans in the layout of the mentioned highway. The most recent expansions have been developed in direction the northwest, being implanted in this zone, some of the more important communitarian equipment, like one of the schools public and the medical doctor's office.
The urban structure of nucleus appears confused, when going away adapting the urban plot to the terrain featureses, like it happens in other serranos nuclei. Thus, we can distinguish in the original nucleus an extended plot, whereas in the zone of the first expansion, the plot appears more orthogonal, constituting great apples of rectangular form. The rest of the structure of the nucleus presents/displays an anarchical plot, without clear signs of expansions that have been planned city-planning.
The mining activity, of special importance in history and the present of the local economy, has left signs of its activity in the villa, when presenting/displaying some constructions the own characteristics of the houses of the workers of the mines.
Between its artistic and monumental elements, it is possible to emphasize in the first place, the neolithic deposit of "the Covachos". Also it is to emphasize, at monumental level, already mentioned Parochial Church of Santa Maria de Gracia, constructed among others by Hernán Ruiz II and Vermondo Resta. In civil architecture it honors the City council and the medieval Castle, whereas they are natural landscapes of special beauty, the shores of Cala and Viar, the cascades of the Spurt and the Holes and the stream of Cold Throat.
