The municipality of Cazalla of the Sierra is included in the Sierra North sevillana district, being part of the environment of the Natural Park of the same name. Their extreme noroccidental is bordering with the Autonomous Community of Extremadura. In 1.996 their population ascended 5.229 inhabitants, most of which I/you/he/she resided in the main nucleus. Among the remaining entities of population of the term it highlights the town of The Ganchosa.
The man already inhabited these mountain lands the neolithic one and the calcolítico, as they attest it different archaeological remains. On an old Carthaginian fortification, the Romans found the town of Callentum. With the arrival of the Arab, it passes to be denominated Castalla, being conquered by the Christian troops by the middle of the XIII century. It belongs during several centuries to the Council of Seville, being one of the strong squares that defend their Kingdom of the Portuguese attacks. The population reaches her splendor in the XVI and XVII centuries, ending up becoming the king's residence Felipe V at the beginning of the XVIII century.
The primitive nucleus settles on a small hill of 605 meters of altitude. Their later developments take place toward the north, on a natural depression defined by two mounds of 650 meters, located to the east and the west. The geographical and topographical conditions have largely determined their urban morphology.
The appearance of funeral trails in the vicinities of the church of the Consolation makes think of the existence of a primitive strong Visigoth on the hill of the Castle and of a necropolis in its north skirt. But it is low the Muslim dominance when the establishment is configured as urban nucleus. In a first moment you reutilizan the Visigothic materials in the fortification of the hill. Already in time almohade, the citadel is built and a residential nucleus is formalized toward the east that extends until the current one he/she remains silent Sandbanks. It constitutes a lengthened fortified enclosure from this to west and limited to the south for you escarp them topographical and to the north down the street Lieutenant López Cepero. The enclosure has several doors: that of the north that leads to the citadel and that it originates in their exterior the square of the Suburb (current square of Spain), point from which will leave the development of the city medieval Christian; and the door of Azahín, located to the east, and around the one that the suburb of the same name will arise.
In the XIV century they are carried out important reformations in the strength almohade and the church of Consolation is built that becomes in landmark of the urban growth toward the north, with streets that they generate irregular apples and that they converge in the square of the church (Square of the Martyrs). During the XVI century and the first half of the XVII one takes place a strong development, arriving the nucleus until the natural limit that represents the today missing Stream of Olivillas for the north. When tripling the population in little more than one century, he/she goes conforming to a nucleus radiocéntrico with the convents Mother of God and San Francisco like north facade, where the fixed population of more economic level would settle. For the seasonal labor class that exploits the vineyards the New Neighborhood it is urbanized, located beyond the mentioned convents and in the western skirts that pour to the bed of the stream Egido. Its orthogonal plot, with an axis main parallel north-south to the mentioned stream, adapts to the topography with apples lengthened in the sense of the level curves, saving the biggest slopes the traverse streets.
In the second half of the XVIII century significant transformations take place in the consolidated urban helmet. The axis north-south becomes the most important, and its continuation constitutes the base of the development of the XIX century that transforms the outline morphological radiocéntrico of Cazalla in mainly lineal, with its north limit in Santa Clara's Convent and the Carmen's Church (on the one on the way to Guadalcanal) and the south limit in San Benito's Church (in the exit of The Pedroso). In the north sector he/she is formed a trident of streets (Carmelo Merchán, Flat and Daoiz) that converge in the Walk, along which the population will expand at the end of the XIX one and at the beginning of the XX one.
In this last century the New Neighborhood is reconstructed and you colmatan the outlying neighborhoods, but without generating big growths in the urban plot because of the demographic descent. At the present time, the helmet old squatter the southeast sector of Cazalla, with their form rounded and small apples in diverse and irregular ways. The later growth toward the north transforms the physiognomy of the nucleus in lineal. In the last years yes he/she has taken place the installation of diverse industrial activities and third in the southern ends and, mainly, northern.
