Andalusians - Settlements

The principal settlement form in Andalusia is the pueblo, a relatively small municipal and residential center with a strongly agrarian economic focus. In most of Andalusia these population centers are geographically isolated from each other, being situated in the approximate center of the extensive lands associated with latifundia (large estate farms). What one finds is a central municipality harboring the local church, administrative buildings, shops and taverns, and dwellings, but little or no industrial focus. The majority of the residents in these population centers consists of landless agricultural laborers and their families. Scattered in the surrounding countryside are the large estate farms with their extensive fields of cereal crops or corn. Associated with each estate, usually built on an elevated site at the approximate center of the property, are the farm buildings: the owner's manor (generally occupied by a manager, for absentee landlordism has long been the rule in the region) ; outbuildings for crop storage and livestock; olive and/or grape arbors; and buildings for the processing of agricultural and animal Products. In addition, one or more small clusters of dwellings may be found on the property, owned by the landlord but housing permanent staff or long-term contract employees and their families, as well as one or more market gardens, watered by wells.