Urrea de Gaén

Urrea de Gaén is a municipality located in the province of Teruel, community of Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census (INE), the municipality has a population of 568 inhabitants.Located in the Lower Martin river area, in the Ebro basin, at the left bank of the Martin river, at 308 meters of elevation. It lies 160 km away from Teruel, the province capital, and 75 km away from Zaragoza, capital of the community.HistoryUrrea de Gaén has known human settlement at least since the Chalcolithic period (2100 BC), as evidenced by ruins and remains discovered in numerous excavations. It was inhabited by tribes of iberized sedentanos. Later there was the Roman occupation with a wide network of agricultural settlements (fundus) in the form of villas.A long Muslim occupation and residence (from the eighth century to 1610) left its mark in the local architecture in the Moorish styling of the village. The area was occupied by the Aragonese from the twelfth century, at the time of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronila, becoming part of the Aragon defensive system. After multiple marriages, lawsuits and swaps, in 1268 King James I created the Lordship of Híjar for his natural son Pedro Fernandez de Hijar. Thereafter the town was always under the dominicatura of Híjar's house, until the abolition of the old regime, well into the nineteenth century.