ARBOLEAS is a small town which is located within the Almeria province, in the community of Andalucia, Spain.
Sitting on the bank of the Almanzora River, in the beautiful Valley of Almanzora, the vista from the viewpoint below the Torre de Arboleas (Tower of Arboleas) of the Sierra de lo Filabres (mountain range) is quite breathtaking.
The Torre de Arboleas
The Arboleas Tower was originally built in the 15th Century as a watchtower but it is now used just as a clock. This ancient building is located just above the viewpoint.
People
Around the beginning of the 20th Century Arboleas consisted mainly of immigrants, passing through the area in order to reach places such as South America or Argentina. Later on in the same century there was another emigration movement through Arboleas but this time towards European countries, especially Germany.
Now, a century on, Arboleas has around 5,000 inhabitants and has been growing steadily and with more speed over the past ten years. The town hall has registered citizens from more than twenty different nationalities within the area with British nationals making up the majority of that population.
Economy
Agriculture and stockbreeding have always been the traditional economies on which Arboleas has been based. In the 1990’s subsidiary from the European Union (EU) provided a much needed boost to Arboelas’s countryside and building work on both public and private developments began to take off.
History
Historically, the river that crosses, The Almanzora, has been used as a pathway by different peoples and cultures wishing to enter the Peninsula. Human settlements have been found in Arboleas which date back to the Neolithic period, Bronze Age, as well as Carthaginian and Roman remains. These remains have mainly been from Islamic cultures who populated Arboleas before 1488 when the province was transferred to the Christians, following Moorish revolts throughout the 16th Century.
