page_title: Alcalá de Henares
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Alcalá de Henares / Geography / Location
caption_attribution_description: English: The diverse landscapes of the autonomous Community of Madrid in the heart of Spain are evident in this week’s image. The community and country’s capital city is visible near the centre of the image. Zooming in, we can see the Buen Retiro park just east of the city centre with its large, artificial pond. About 3.5 km due north sits the Santiago Bernabéu football stadium. Southeast of the stadium we can see another circular structure: the Las Ventas bullfighting ring. In the upper left corner of the image is the El Pardo mountain and protected natural park, which is popular for mountain biking. The other areas surrounding Madrid are blanketed with agricultural structures. East of the city are large fields along the Jarama river, and more areas of agriculture appearing brown further east still. This image, also featured on theEarth from Space video programme, was taken by the Sentinel-2A satellite on 16 November 2015. Launched in June 2015, Sentinel-2 can map changes in land cover such as forest, crops, grassland, water surfaces and artificial cover like roads and buildings in cities. Early results from the mission on mapping changes in land cover are expected to be presented at the upcoming Living Planet Symposium, held in Prague in May. The event brings together scientists and users to present their latest findings on Earth’s environment and climate derived from satellite data.
context_page_description: Alcalá de Henares is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located 35 kilometres to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. As of 2018, it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated municipality.
  Predated by earlier settlements on the left bank of the Henares, the city has its origins in the Complutum settlement founded in Roman times on the right bank of the river, that became a bishopric seat in the 5th century. One of the several Muslim citadels in the Middle Mark of al-Andalus was established on the left bank, while, after the Christian conquest culminated circa 1118, the bulk of the urban nucleus returned to the right bank. For much of the late middle-ages and the early modern period before becoming part of the province of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares was a seigneurial estate of the archbishop of Toledo.
  Its historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.
  The city has a long university tradition. Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros founded the Complutense University in Alcalá de Henares in the late 15th century. The city currently hosts the University of Alcalá.
context_section_description: Alcalá de Henares is located in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula, in the southern half of the Inner Plateau. It lies on the valley of the Henares, a left-bank tributary of the Jarama, in turn a right bank tributary of the Tagus. The right (north) bank of the river (on which the current urban nucleus was built) has a very flat relief with a series of quaternary fluvial terraces, while the slope at the left (southern) bank features a very steep slope of clays from the miocene, rapidly rising up to the moors of La Alcarria.
  At an average of 654 m of altitude, and occupying some 88 km²; the city was for a long time encapsulated in between the river Henares to the South and the Madrid-Barcelona railway to the North. However, the increasing population has forced the expansion of the urbanised area in the area between the railway and the A-2 motorway and beyond.
caption: Alcalá de Henares as seen by the Sentinel-2 of the European Space Agency.
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