Zafra
| Zafra | |||
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The Castle of Zafra
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 Zafra
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| Coordinates: 38°25′N 6°25′W / 38.417°N 6.417°WCoordinates: 38°25′N 6°25′W / 38.417°N 6.417°W | |||
| Country | Spain | ||
| Autonomous community | Extremadura | ||
| Province | Badajoz | ||
| Comarca | Zafra - Río Bodión | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Gloria Pons Fornelino | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 62.6 km2 (24.2 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 508 m (1,667 ft) | ||
| Population (2009) | |||
| • Total | 16,677 | ||
| • Density | 270/km2 (690/sq mi) | ||
| Demonym(s) | Zafrenses, Segedanos/as | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Website | Official website | ||
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Zafra is a town situated in the Province of Badajoz (Extremadura, Spain), and the capital of the comarca of Zafra - Río Bodión. It has a population of 16,677, according to the 2011 census.
Zafra is the hometown of Fray Ruy Lopez, author of one of the first European treatises on chess, and the humanist and arbitrist Pedro de Valencia.
Human traces of great antiquity have been found in the area. In the "El Castellar" mountains are located caves with pictograms. Also, a fort dating to the Bronze Age was found in the nearby chapel of Belén.
Zafra has been associated with the Roman names Restituta Iulia Imperial,Contributa Iulia Ugultunia, and Segida Restituta Iulia, though this applies equally to some of the other towns in the area. The name Contributa Julia appears on an 1849 map of Roman Hispania (in the south-west of Spain, in the area named Baeturia) alongside the name Regina (presently associated with the ruins of a small Roman town of the same name), lending some geographical support to the possibility of an association of the name Contributa Iulia or Contributa Julia with Zafra. Other sources, however, support an association of the name Segida Restituta Iulia with Zafra. Yet other, authoritative, sources associate no Roman name with Zafra. In the area round Zafra may be found the remains of as many as 20 Roman villas. These, and associations between the name Restitutia Iulia and a migration from the legendary Segeda, may be linked to the origin of the town.
A significant fact is that Zafra is located between Badajoz, and Seville, the capital of the province of Baetica.
In medieval times, Zafra was situated on the border which divided the domains of Seville and Badajoz, and in 1030 a defensive fortification was constructed in the Castellar Mountains. This fort would be named Sajra Abi Hassan by the Moorish geographer Abu Abdullah al-Bakri in 1094. The Arabs named the town Safra, or Cafra, meaning 'the yellow one', from which derived the current name.
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Wikipedia