Life

Although Alcalá de los Gazules has important sites from the Roman period, it has actually been settled since the Neolithic Age.

There are also relics of a Visigoth village that was in the area until the Muslims arrived. The origin of the village's name is due to a fortress built by the Muslims, and "castle" in Arabic is Al Kalat. The King of Granada handed the town over to the lineage of the Gazules noblemen, who gave the village its final name. In 1248 Fernando III conquered the town but the Muslims managed to recover it soon after. However, in 1264 Alfonso X finally recovered the town, and in 1444 King Juan II gave it up to the feudal estate of the Ribera Family.

The following centuries were extremely prosperous, but at the beginning of the XIX century the population dropped drastically due to the epidemics of yellow fever and cholera. It didn't help either that at the same time the Napoleonic troops sacked and destroyed the castle and the bridge over the Barbate River. Fortunately History put things in its place, and in 1876 King Alfonso XII gave it the title of city and in 1984 its old part was declared an historic-artistic monument.