Burgos (Spanish: [ˈbuɾɣos] ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León in Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Burgos, and with a population of 176,551, also the largest city in the province, and the 37th-largest in Spain.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of the Arlanzón river tributaries and at the edge of the central plateau. The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route runs through Burgos.
The Laws of Burgos (Spanish: Leyes de Burgos), promulgated on 27 December 1512 in Burgos, Crown of Castile (Spain), was the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the Americas, particularly with regard to the Indigenous people of the Americas ("native Caribbean Indians"). They forbade the slavery of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism. The laws were created following the conquest and Spanish colonization of the Americas in the West Indies, where the common law of Castile was not fully applicable. Friars and Spanish academics pressured King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter, Queen regnant, Joanna of Castile, to pass the set of laws in order to protect the rights of the natives of the New World.
The scope of the laws was originally restricted to the island of Hispaniola but was later extended to the islands of Puerto Rico and Santiago, later renamed Jamaica. These laws authorized and legalized the colonial practice of creating encomiendas, where Indians were grouped together to work under a colonial head of the estate for a salary, and limited the size of these establishments to between 40 and 150 people. They also established a minutely regulated regime of work, pay, provisioning, living quarters, and diet. Women more than four months pregnant were exempted from heavy labor.
The province of Burgos is a province of northern Spain, in the northeastern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Palencia, Cantabria, Vizcaya, Álava, La Rioja, Soria, Segovia, and Valladolid. Burgos is the province of Spain that has borders with most provinces. Its capital is the city of Burgos.
The Cartularies of Valpuesta from the monastery Santa María de Valpuesta, in Burgos, are considered to be the oldest known documents containing words written in the Spanish language.
The Atapuerca Mountains (Spanish: Sierra de Atapuerca) is a karstic hill formation near the village of Atapuerca in the province of Burgos (autonomous community of Castile and Leon), northern Spain.
In a still ongoing excavation campaign, rich fossil deposits and stone tool assemblages have been discovered which are attributed to the earliest known hominin residents in Western Europe. This "exceptional reserve of data" has been deposited during extensive Lower Paleolithic presence, as the Atapuerca Mountains served as the preferred occupation site of Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis communities. The earliest specimen so far unearthed and reliably dated confirm an age between 1.2 million and 630,000 years. Some finds are exhibited in the nearby Museum of Human Evolution, in Burgos.
Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" (plata being silver in Spanish), was an artistic movement, especially architectural, developed in Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in the late 15th century and spread over the next two centuries. It is a modification of Gothic spatial concepts and an eclectic blend of Mudéjar, Flamboyant, Gothic, and Lombard decorative components, as well as Renaissance elements of Tuscan origin.
Examples of this syncretism are the inclusion of shields and pinnacles on façades, columns built in the Renaissance neoclassical manner, and façades divided into three parts (in Renaissance architecture they are divided into two). It reached its peak during the reign of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, especially in Salamanca, but also flourished in other such cities of the Iberian Peninsula as León, Burgos, Santiago de Compostela, also in the territory of New Spain, which is now Mexico, and in Bogotá.
García Fernández, called of the White Hands (Spanish: el de las Manos Blancas) (Burgos, c. 938 – Córdoba, 995), was the count of Castile and Alava from 970 to 995. In May 995, he was captured by a raiding party while out hunting. Wounded in the encounter, he was sent to Cordoba as a trophy, but died at Medinaceli in June 995.
Miranda de Ebro (Spanish: [miˈɾan̪da ðe ˈeβɾo]) is a Spanish municipality belonging to the province of Burgos in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Straddling the Ebro river, near its confluence with the Bayas, the city is located on the northern watershed of the Obarenes Mountains, near the border with the Basque province of Álava and the autonomous community of La Rioja. As of 2 January 2025, the municipality has a registered population of 37,138.
The city has an industrial economy focusing on the chemical industry. Connected to the Meseta Central through the Pancorbo Pass, Miranda is an important transportation hub, served by the AP-1 and AP-68 road routes and the Madrid–Hendaye and Tudela–Bilbao rail routes. Within 80 kilometres (50 miles) are the cities of Bilbao, Burgos, Logroño and Vitoria-Gasteiz.
A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes.
The Cathedral of Saint Mary of Burgos (Spanish: Catedral de Burgos) is a Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary located in the historical center of the Spanish city of Burgos. Its official name is the Holy Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica Church of St Mary of Burgos (Spanish: Santa Iglesia Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Santa María de Burgos).
Its construction began in 1221, in the style of French Gothic architecture and is based on a Latin cross. After a hiatus of almost 200 years, it went through major embellishments of great splendor in the 15th and 16th centuries: the spires of the main facade, the capilla del Condestable, 'Chapel of the Constable' and dome of the transept. These are elements of the flamboyant Gothic which gives the cathedral its unmistakable profile. The last works of importance (the Sacristy or the Chapel of Saint Thecla) were performed in the 18th century, during which the Gothic portals of the main facade were also modified. The style of the cathedral is the Gothic, although it has several decorative Renaissance and Baroque elements as well. The construction and renovations were made with limestone extracted from the quarries of the nearby town of Hontoria de la Cantera.
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities (Spanish: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades [la ˈβiða ðe laθaˈɾiʎo ðe ˈtoɾmes i ðe sus foɾˈtunas jaðβeɾsiˈðaðes]) is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its anticlerical content. The oldest editions were published in 1554 in four locations : Alcalá de Henares, Burgos and Medina del Campo in Spain and Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. It is assumed that they were not the original edition of the novella, which was published at an unknown date. The Alcalá de Henares edition adds some episodes which were most likely written by a second author. Lazarillo de Tormes is the first book establishing the style of the picaresque satirical novel.