Elx Palm Grove. A World Heritage Site

Elx Palm Grove. A World Heritage Site

A Unique Landscape of Exceptional Value and of Universal Significance, Legacy of Al-Andalus, Medieval Muslim Spain.

The Andalusí peasant knew how to gain the greatest benefit from the scant water to be found in the almost desert lands of Elx by planting and managing date palms rationally.

The limits of the irrigated plots stretching along the irrigation channels that receive their water from the neighbouring Vinalopó are defined by lines of date palms. This line of palms acts as a living screen whose resulting microclimate protects the associated crops from winds and excessive sunlight. This farming landscape, called oasis in the rest of the world, is known in Elx as the Palmeral, or Palm Grove”.

As a consequence, in lands where irrigation alone would have had difficulty in producing anything more than cereal crops, an intensive, multi-layered system of agriculture appeared, where date palms, fruit trees and herbaceous crops were grown simultaneously. This in turn enabled animal husbandry and crafts to flourish.

The Elx Palm Grove has moreover, a trait that distinguishes it from all other palm groves the world over: the blanched palm leaf, a living vestige of the Ancient Mediterranean date palm culture.