El territorio transfronterizo del Bajo Guadiana: paisaje e infraestructuras desde Pomarao a Ayamonte

Abstract

The Guadiana river, which had been crossing the Iberian Peninsula in an east - west direction, when leaving Badajoz turns, almost at a right angle, and begins its south way, to the Atlantic. This last stretch of the river is known as Lower Guadiana. After traveling about 200 km, it reaches Pomarao, where it receives its tributary, the Chanza river, and at this point it begins to draw the border between Spain and Portugal until it dies in Ayamonte. It is the last stretch of the river, between Pomarao and the Atlantic, the area of study, the so called “Lower Guadiana cross-border territory”. For centuries the relations between both margins were marked by the fact of being a border, of separating two countries, of defending two territories. Different languages, different currencies, defensive constructions that dot this geography, but also phenomena such as smuggling and trade between the two countries have contributed to define this area. A careful look allows us to appreciate the contaminations of both cultures in this space, which despite separating two realities, has allowed the generation of a culture of its own and it is this transversal look that leads this work, crossing this stretch of the Guadiana, in unison on both banks , discovering this territory from its history, but also from its contemporaneity, analyzing the new infrastructures that erase the border, that sew both shores and seek to generate a new future for this territory.