Carabanchel is a district in the south western suburbs of Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

Overview

The area was the scene of fierce fighting during the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 -especially in November 1936, during the Battle of Madrid, when Nationalist troops tried to fight their way into the area. Unacustomed to street fighting, they took heavy casualties. For the remainder of the Siege of Madrid, the front lines ran through the streets of Carabanchel, until Republican Madrid fell in March 1939.

It was home of Spain's most notorious prison (Carabanchel Prison

Carabanchel Prison

Carabanchel Prison was constructed by political prisoners after the Spanish Civil War between 1940 and 1944 in the Madrid's neighbourhood of Carabanchel. It was one of the biggest prisons in Europe until its closure in 1998...

), which housed many political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

s during the Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

 era. The prison was closed in 1998.

Carabanchel is amongst the most diverse neighborhoods in the country, with a large population of immigrants, mostly from North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

 but also some from South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, as well as native-born Spaniards.

Subdivision

The district is administratively divided into 7 wards (Barrios):

• Abrantes
• Buenavista
• Comillas
• Opañel
• Puerta Bonita
• San Isidro
• Vista Alegre

External links