Palmeral de Elche

The Palmeral de Elche is the largest system of palm groves in Europe, with roots in Iberian and Roman-era irrigation, though its current layout of walled square plots dates from the 10th century, when the Caliphate of Córdoba organised the irrigation system after founding Islamic-era Elche. In 1265, following the Christian conquest, Jaume I stopped the palms from being cut down, since they were seen as a symbol of Islamic culture, a decision that goes a long way toward explaining their survival today.

Two scales, one landscape

In its broadest sense, the Palmeral covers around 500 hectares of the municipality of Elche, with as many as 300,000 date palms counted across urban orchards and outlying land. The core recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site on 30 November 2000 is smaller: around 144 hectares of historic orchards within the city itself, holding close to 45,000 palms enclosed by stone walls or woven-leaf fencing. Some specimens are more than three hundred years old.

Walking the Palmeral

Walking through the orchards open to the public, several of them next to the Museo Arqueológico e Histórico de Elche, brings visitors close to the rows of palms and the traditional irrigation channels that still shape much of the city. Nearby, the Huerto del Cura holds the most carefully tended botanical variety in the whole system, while the Basílica de Santa María offers elevated views over the sea of palms that wraps around the historic centre. It is, by some distance, the largest of the region's gardens and parks.