Where I am from

This is a question that I am asked quite often, and it is slightly difficult to answer, as I come from a demographic desert that very little people know about. To ease everyone’s lives, I decided to write a blog post about it, so I can also refer everyone to it for further and deeper information, including maps.

Spain

Spain is a Mediterranean country in Southern Europe, which includes some territories that are geographically located in the African continent (Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands). Its immediate neighboring countries are France and Andorra in the North, Portugal in the East and Morocco in the South.

It is located in the Iberian Peninsula, which is shared with Portugal and surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the East half and the Atlantic Ocean in the North and West parts. The part of the Atlantic Ocean which bathes the northern coast of Spain is many times referred to as Cantabrian Sea (Mar Cantábrico).

Where in Spain?

I get this a lot, and this is where things get tricky. I was born in Zaragoza, but my whole family moved to Soria when I was four years old. Then, like most people do, moved out to study in Madrid. When asked, though, I always say that I am from Soria.

Each of these cities is in a different Autonomous Region (Comunidad Autónoma), which are the main subdivisions of the country for administrative purposes.

As can be seen in the following map, the move was not that big geographically speaking, but it meant moving from a relatively big city, to a small town, to a big city again, which has been pivotal in my upbringing and background. I am from the countryside. My school mates were dreaming with tractors, not “lambos”. The distance between Zaragoza and Soria is about 170 kilometers, and there are around 220 between Soria and Madrid.

So you are from Soria… how is it there?

Soria is in the Inner Plateau (Meseta Central), more specifically in the Northern Sub-Plateau. This means that is relatively high all around, with a regional average of 1116 meters over the sea level but without very high mountains, and pretty cold for the average climate of Spain. During summer it is hot, sometimes above 35C. During winter it is cold, up to -10C. Spring sees the most precipitation, but it is generally very dry all year round. The city itself is at 1065 meters over the sea level, being the second highest city in Spain. There’s a strong agri-food component in the provincial economy, but the city itself focuses its workforce in the service sector for the most part.

The city origins radicate in a Celtiberian settlement named Numancia who was started around the 4th century B.C., which makes for a city with a long history that traverses many cultures, and at the same time very unique. The population is of about 40750 inhabitants (INE, 2024).

Soria is known as the “City of Poets” or “The Well Sang”, due to its unusually high cultural activity during the first half of the 20th Century.

The Celtiberian Range

Celtiberian culture is a product of the mix between the pre-Roman Iberian and Celtic cultures that occurred in certain areas of Spain, which include Soria, having a cultural impact. In modern times, the idea of the Celtiberian Range, on top of being a geographic feature, was established to showcase an area of extremely coarse population with a blatant economic risk due to the low population density and lack of infrastructure.

The Celtiberian range includes the provinces of Burgos, Soria, Teruel, Guadalajara, Cuenca, parts of Zaragoza, Segovia and La Rioja and a little bit of Castellón and Valencia. In the case of the Province of Soria, the population has gone from a maximum of 165865 people in the 1940s to 89528 inhabitants in the 2023 census (INE). This represents a cut of almost half of the population in 80 years.

The Celtiberian range is popularly called “The Southern Lapland” and used many times as an example of demographic desert (with a population density of about 8 inhabitants per square kilometer) caused by the shift in economic activity and lack of institutional care.

What does this mean to me?

I will always say that I am a countryside person which happened to stumble upon computers and ended up loving them. Being raised in this environment meant that I was free to get in touch with nature and agriculture from very early on, which gave me a good understanding of how human relationships work in little societies and certain processes that people most commonly do not even think about. As a side effect, it caused me to develop a strong will so as to what would mean to live in a bigger city from very early on, hence I took the chance to study in Madrid. I consider myself a strange mix of rural and urban with a heart close to the problems of small communities.