La Mancha - Geography

Geography

The largest plain in the Iberian Peninsula, La Mancha is made up of plateau averaging 500 to 600 metres in altitude (although it reaches 900 metres in Campo de Montiel and other parts), centering on the province of Ciudad Real. The region is watered by the Guadiana, Jabalón, Záncara, Cigüela, and Júcar rivers. The Spanish historian Hosta gives the most accepted description of the limits of the geographical La Mancha plain:

All the territory, plain, arid and dry, that is between Montes de Toledo and the western skirts of Serranía de Cuenca, and from Alcarria to Sierra Morena, including in this denomination the Mesa de Ocaña high plateau and Quintanar, the comarcas of Belmonte and San Clemente and the old territories of the military Orders of Santiago, San Juan and Calatrava, with all the Sierra de Alcaraz; being its limits to the North the Tajo river and the part called properly Castilla la Nueva, to the East the kingdoms of Valencia and Murcia, and to the South, the kingdoms of Córdoba and Jaén, and to the West, the provinces of Extremadura, spreading 53 leagues from East to West and 33 leagues from North to South. Until the 16th century, the east part was also called Mancha de Monte-Aragón, because of the name of the mountains that were the old border between La Mancha and the Kingdom of Valencia, and to the rest simply Mancha. Afterwards, La Mancha was also divided into Mancha Alta and Mancha Baja, according to the level and flow of its rivers, including the first one the northeast part, from Villarubia de los Ojos until Belmonte, country of the old Iberian Lamitans, and the second one the southwest part, including Campo de Calatrava and Campo de Montiel, old country of the Iberian Oretans.