Guijuelo
Guijuelo is a Spanish municipality and town in the province of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León. It is distinguished as the most important population center in the southeast of Campo Charro and is considered the capital or service center of the Guijuelo region and the Salvatierra sub-region. It belongs to the judicial district of Béjar and the Commonwealth of Guijuelo and its surrounding area.
Its municipal area is made up of the towns of Cabezuela, Campillo, Guijuelo and Palacios, it occupies a total area of 63.23 km² and according to the demographic data collected in the municipal register prepared by the INE, it has 5,495 inhabitants.
Symbols
Shield
The heraldic shield that represents the municipality was approved on March 28, 1958 with the following coat of arms:
«Court of Gules, with a ruined church, of sable mazonated gold. Borture of azur loaded, in chief, of a trebled gold cross, enriched in stonework. Around the embroidery they have to alternate three golden bees made of sable with silver wings and four oak branches in the form of a clover, composed in the center, of a golden acorn, with silver caps, and of two silver profiled foils. Bees on the flanks and on the tip, and bouquets on the four ends. Ducal crown of gold, with the circle adorned with stones»Official State Gazette of 14 April 1958
Flag
The municipal flag was approved on January 31, 2001 with the following textual description:
« Square cloth, 1:1 ratio, divided into four parts, the top and bottom red, and the closest to the asta and its opposite blue. The coat of arms of the Villa de Guijuelo has been overlaid in the centre»Official Gazette of Castile and Leon No. 49 of 9 March 2001
Toponymy
The place name Guijuelo has been collected in different ways since ancient times, although there are different theories about the origin of this place name, since this fact is not entirely clear. Historically, it can be found transcribed in the XVII century in the forms Guixuelo, El Guijuelo , and Guijuelo de Salvatierra, a fact that leaves open several theories about the origin of the place name.
In this sense, Antonio Llorente Maldonado links the origin of the place name guijuelo to that of other similar ones such as herguijuela and arguijo, noting that Guijuelo would have the same root but having eliminated the article, place names that "allude to places abundant in quarries and limestone crags" according to this philologist. In this regard, it should be noted that Herguijuela de Ciudad Rodrigo is listed in the Late Middle Ages as Elguijuela, while Herguijuela del Campo was listed as El Erguixuela, existing in Las Veguillas a farmhouse, currently unpopulated, called Arguijo, whose root would be composed according to this theory of Ar+Guijo. To support this hypothesis, Maldonado alludes to the "use by the natives of Guijuelo and the inhabitants of the neighboring towns, of the cliché El Guijuelo, with an article, instead of the official form Guijuelo ", which according to this hypothesis links to the place names "Guijo" and "Guijuelo" with those of "Arguijo" and "Erguijuelo"/"Arguijuelo".
For his part, Nieto Ballester maintains that the place name Guijuelo would be derived from the word guijo or guija, albeit in a diminutive way, which would be defined as small boulder, being able to define guijuelo in this case also as a set of pebbles, from which the now more common pebble< would have been formed /i>. In this sense, there are various place names in western Spain (mainly in the province of Cáceres) that could be considered derivatives of this lexical root, including the towns of Guijo de Granadilla (Cáceres), Guijo de Galisteo (Cáceres), El Guijo (Córdoba), Guijo de Ávila (Salamanca), Guijo de Coria (Cáceres), Guijo de Santa Bárbara (Cáceres), El Guijo (Arcos de la Frontera, Cádiz), or Los Guijuelos (Bohoyo, Ávila).
Similarly, various theories have been put forward regarding the origin of the word guijo, without diminutive, such as the one that points to a pre-Roman origin, from the root argh- (bright white). This would imply the relationship of the word with place names of the Arguijo type (existing in both Soria and Salamanca), which would present the original form, due to a false analysis of the article. On the other hand, Manuel de Larramendi pointed to the possible origin of the place name guijo on the Basque word eguiya (song, corner), which would also be linked to the place name pebble, by adding the word "harri" (stone), which would give rise to "eguiya harri".
History
Although the archaeological remains confirm the existence of human settlement before the arrival of the Romans, the current Guijuelo was founded and repopulated by the kings of Leon during the Middle Ages, previously being called Guixuelo, as This is how the medieval documentation collects it, the name from which the current one derives. Throughout the medieval period it belonged to the Alfoz de Salvatierra, which was erected as an important Leonese stronghold for the defense of the border of the Kingdom of León against Castile, which extended to the east of the territory of Salvatierra, in what Today it is the province of Ávila. More recently, in 1833, when the current provinces were created, Guijuelo was included in the province of Salamanca, within the Leonese Region, thus confirming the territorial assignment that it already had in the division of Floridablanca in 1785. The arrival of the Vía railway de la Plata, in 1896, marked a before and after for Guijuelo, which began to grow at its side. Thus, in 1909 the Clock building (seat of the town hall) and the bullring were inaugurated, receiving the title of "villa" from the hands of Alfonso XIII, while in 1917 electricity arrived in Guijuelo and in 1920 it became the first town in Salamanca to have a sewage network, finishing in 1958 the construction of the new parish church, that of Ntra. Sra. de the assumption. On August 15, 1967, however, the most serious event took place in Guijuelo, when a gas explosion, known as the explosion of "aunt Pola's house", caused fifteen deaths in the locality.
Demographics
| Graphic of demographic evolution of Guijuelo between 1842 and 2022 |
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Population of law according to population censuses of the INE. |
According to the National Institute of Statistics, Guijuelo had, as of January 1, 2022, a total population of 5,495 inhabitants, of whom 2,759 were men and 2,736 women.
The municipality is divided into four population centers. Of the 5,660 inhabitants that the municipality had in 2018, Guijuelo had 5,290, of whom 2,631 were men and 2,659 women, Campillo de Salvatierra with 287, of whom 154 were men and 133 women, Cabezuela de Salvatierra with 52, of whom of which 25 were men and 27 women, and Palacios de Salvatierra with 31, of which 15 were men and 16 women.
Between 1970 and 1981, the term of the municipality grew because it incorporated Aldeavieja de Tormes, Cabezuela de Salvatierra, Campillo de Salvatierra, Fuentes de Béjar, Nava de Béjar and 37227 Palacios de Salvatierra. Between 1981 and 1991, the term of the municipality decreased because it made Aldeavieja de Tormes and Nava de Béjar independent.
Economy
The industry of pork meat products is one of the most important in Spain, dedicating a large part of the population to it. It is possible to speak of Guijuelo as a privileged population in economic terms, with one of the highest per capita incomes in Spain.
The hams and sausages from Iberian pigs are famous and of great quality, although they come largely from the Extremaduran and Andalusian pastures, they find here the ideal place for curing, thanks to a characteristic cold and dry climate.
In the municipality there are 173 companies dedicated to the industry, mostly to the food industry related to ham and sausages, among them companies and brands recognized worldwide. 65% of the active population, a total of 2525 workers are dedicated to the industrial sector. After the industrial sector is the service sector with 27% of the active population, 1060 workers, divided into 200 companies. It is noteworthy that with data from July 2019, the municipality only registered unemployment of 9.84%.
Monuments and places of interest
- Museo de la industria chacinera de Guijuelo.
- The Torreon, an apse of an ojival church dating the first half of the centuryXV.
- Church of Our Lady of Assumption.
Administration and politics
Municipal elections
Mayors
The Guijuelo city council has been headed by the mayor of the Popular Party, Francisco Julián Ramos during four legislatures: from 2005 to 2019.
Evolution of outstanding debt
The concept of outstanding debt includes only debts with savings banks and banks related to financial credits, fixed-income securities and loans or credits transferred to third parties, excluding, therefore, commercial debt.
| The evolution of the city council's living debt between 2008 and 2021 |
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Living city council debt in thousands of Euros according to data from the Ministry of Finance and Ad. Public. |
The outstanding municipal debt per inhabitant in 2021 amounted to €775.50.
Popular festivals
- 15 August Assumption of Mary
- Fiestas de Guijuelo: 15 August
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