GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT

   Miajadas is a town located in the South of the Province of Cáceres and part of its area adjoins the Province of Badajoz. Although it belongs to the region and jurisdiction of Trujillo, it is attached to the Vegas del Guadiana area from a geographical point of view.

   The town is sited on sedimentary fields formed during the Tertiary and Quaternary Ages. At the same time, these clay and sand sediments lay on stones from the Primary Age, such as granite and slate, which appear on the surface in the Los Canchales and La Dehesilla spots. In these areas, the Paleolithic stones have been folded by tectonic forces and form a series of little rises that put the fertile plains of Guadiana river in touch with the mountains of the Central Sierras of Extremadura and, in particular, with the Sierra of San Cristobal.

   Vegetation in Miajadas has been changed by human activity from the foundation of the village in the Middle Ages. Eighty percent of municipal territory has been deforested and land is devoted to pastures and dry and irrigated crops. Only in the North-West sector the natural flora remains, including holm oaks, cork oaks, mastic trees, kermes oaks and wild olive trees as pastureland. Several species of insects, reptiles, birds and native mammals coexist in this ecosystem, all of them typical of a Mediterranean bio-climate.