Carcaixent

Municipality

Coat of arms

Carcaixent

Location in Spain

Coordinates: 39°7′20″N 0°26′56″W / 39.12222°N 0.44889°WCoordinates: 39°7′20″N 0°26′56″W / 39.12222°N 0.44889°W

Country

Spain

Alzira

Government

• Alcaldesa

Francesc Salom Salom (2015) (Compromis)

Area

• Total

59.3 km² (22.9 sq mi)

Elevation

21 m (69 ft)

Population (2008)

• Total

21,973

• Density

370/km² (960/sq mi)

Demonym(s)

Carcaixentí, carcaixentina

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

46740

Website

Carcaixent (Valencian pronunciation: [kaɾkajˈʃent], Spanish: Carcagente) is a town and municipality in the province of Valencia, eastern Spain, with c. 20,000 inhabitants. Its origins go back to prehistoric Iberian and Roman times, with some remainders in its area. It is located in the Ribera Alta comarca, 40 km south of the provincial capital Valencia. It is the birthplace of the orange growth and its flourishing commerce in the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently, its inhabitants live basically on agriculture and the service sector.

Remains of Neolithic, Iberian and Roman settlements have been found in the area of Carcaixent, although the municipality actually originated from a Muslim farmhouse. King Philip II awarded Carcaixent the title of University in 1576. After upgrading it to Villa Real, the king issued Royal Privileges granting it the right to vote in the Courts of Valencia. Economy and population boomed in Carcaixent in the 18th century thanks to the sound production of silk, although crops were replaced by orange trees in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Carcaixent was awarded the title of city in 1916.

The orange is the fruit made from Spain, through Valencia, and spreading throughout the rest of the world. In Greek mythology the The Garden of the Hesperides is a mythological grove where apples grew tended to by nymphs and a dragon. Hercules, the hero of classical literature, killed the guardian, entered the garden and plucked those golden apples –In later years it was thought that the "golden apples" might have actually been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe before the Middle Ages. Several scholars defend that the etymology of the word comes from the Sanskrit term narang and the Persian word narensh. When Arabs brought orange farming to the Iberian Peninsula, they called the fruits naranjah. The Region of Valencia maintained the orange-farming tradition after the Arabic period, with references to orange trees in the city of Valencia dating back to the 14th century. In fact, there is an Orange Courtyard inside Valencia’s 15th-century Silk Exchange market (La Llotja de la Seda), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The first references to commercial orange plantations date back to the 18th century.

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Wikipedia