Ciudad Encantada

Ciudad Encantada
IUCN category III (natural monument or feature)
File:09042009 164759 CEC 0091 - WLE Spain 2015.jpg Rock wall in Ciudad Encantada
Location	Cuenca, Spain
Coordinates
Area	250 acres (100 ha)
Established	1929

File:Ciudad E 1.jpg

A mushroom rock, Ciudad Encantada.

The Ciudad Encantada (English: Enchanted City) is a geological site near the city of Cuenca, in the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha, Spain, in which the erosive forces of weather and the waters of the nearby Júcar river have formed rocks into distinctive and memorable shapes.

It was declared a Natural Site of National Interest on 11 June 1929.

Origin of the formations

The rock formations of Ciudad Encantada are karst formations made of limestone and dolomite, which date back to the Cretaceous period, approximately 90 million years ago. Rain falling on the original limestone plateau wore down the porous limestone, leaving behind the more resistant dolomite. Because the dolomite was not always distributed evenly in the original rock, the result was the irregularly eroded shapes that form the Ciudad Encantada.

Shapes of rocks

The rock formations that have been named include:

• Mushroom rocks Seta ('Mushroom')
• Puente ('Bridge')
• Cara ('Face')
• Convento ('Convent')
• El mar de piedra (The stone sea)
• Teatro ('Theatre')
• Hipopótamos ('Hippopotami')
• Amantes ('Lovers')
• La foca (The seal)
• La tortuga (the turtle)
• Los osos (the bears)

In film and television

Ciudad Encantada appears as a location in the following films:

• The Pride and the Passion, 1957
• The Colossus of Rhodes, 1962
• The Mercenary, 1968.
• Johnny Hamlet, 1968.
• The Valley of Gwangi, 1969.
• Conan the Barbarian, 1982.
• The World Is Not Enough, 1999.

Gallery

• Rock walls
  Rock walls
• Man's face
  Man's face
• Other mushroom rock
  Other mushroom rock
• The stone sea
  The stone sea
• Battle of the crocodile and the elephant
  Battle of the crocodile and the elephant
• The mushrooms
  The mushrooms
• A drawing of Ciudad Encantada, circa 1875, published in Annals of the Spanish Society of Natural History
  A drawing of Ciudad Encantada, circa 1875, published in Annals of the Spanish Society of Natural History

External links

• Visitor information from the Ayuntamiento de Cuenca
• Images of some of the more distinctive rock formations
• Web Ciudad Encantada Cuenca