Analysis of an Urban Plan: Zamora

Zamora is located in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula, built just around the river Duero that is born in Picos de Urbión (Soria) and disembogue in the Atlantic Sea in Oporto (Portugal). Also, the river Valderaduey, that is a tributary of the river Duero, crosses the city at its western area.  Its relief is characterized by the plains of the northern plateau and its altitude is 652, 6 mosl. One of the main geographical characteristics is a rocky plateau in which the historic center is placed of 26 to 32 meters of height that rises just in the borders of the river Duero. This is the reason why Zamora is called “La bien cercada”.

In first place, talking about the different areas of the city, we can mention the historic center, the inner suburbs, the outer suburbs and the commercial and industrial area. However, we can difference two parts of the city of Zamora: the medieval area (historic center) and the modern area (inner & outer suburbs and industrial area). As it is known, Zamora is one of best examples of Romanesque style all over Europe, due to its 20 churches and the Cathedral, that are Romanesque buildings with some details of gothic style. On the other hand, Zamora has a medieval wall just around the historic center and a Romanic castle that probably was the origin of the city thousands of years ago. Moreover, referring to public buildings, we can talk about the Alhóndiga del Pan, the Parador of Tourism or Ramos Carrión Theater. Finally, the main squares of the city are Major Square and La Marina, both located near the central axis of the historic center: Santa Clara Street.

In the city of Zamora, the historic center is rounded by Ronda de la Feria and Avenida del Mengue. As it is the medieval former of actual Zamora city, the historic center is characterized by an irregular plan with narrow and winding streets that most of the times have no end. In fact, we can say that all the streets are distributed around Santa Clara Street, which crosses the entire Historic center. However, other important streets are Portugal Avenue or Alfonso IX Avenue. Also, apart from these, the main churches (such as Santiago el Burgo or Santa María Magdalena) and the main monuments (Viriato´s monument or “El Merlú”) are located in this central zone. However, as every medieval area, it has several problems such as the strange outline of the winding streets of the center that difficulties the transition of cars and pedestrians, or the deterioration of some historic buildings and houses. Some measures to deal with these problems are to convert some streets in pedestrian streets and to apply rehabilitation politics to preserve all the historic buildings of the zone.

Thirdly, the suburbs of Zamora are distributed within an orthogonal plan with long-wide streets that look like perpendicular avenues, for example Tres Cruces Avenue, Principe de Asturias Avenue, Cardenal Cisneros Avenue… In addition, the buildings we find here are mainly terraced residential edifices inhabited by a medium-high social class. Although in Zamora there is not a clear “Ensanche” as it occurs in cities like Madrid or Barcelona; Zamora shows architectonic characteristics of it in some of the buildings of the inner city.

Finally, the main industrial areas in Zamora are “El Polígono de la Hiniesta” and “El Polígono de los Llanos”; and, within the main industrial activities in Zamora we can mention steel industry, manufacturing industry and chemistry industry. However, Zamora is not a city with a big industrial activity as the main economic activity is agriculture and livestock raising. On the other hand, commercial areas located in the outer layer of the city have a combination of hypermarkets, warehouses and specialized shops that satisfy the necessities of the inhabitants and result very accessible due to its proximity to the main roads.