Province of Zamora

Province of Zamora
—  Autonomous Community  —
Flag Coat of arms
Map of Zamora
Coordinates: 41°45′N 6°00′W
Capital	Zamora, Spain
Government
• President	Fernando Martínez Maillo
Area(2.2% of Spain; Ranked 22nd)
• Total	10,561 km2 (4,078 sq mi)
Population (2007)
• Total	200,678
• Density	Bad rounding here19/km2 (Bad rounding here49/sq mi)
• Pop. rank	45th
• Percent	0.45 of Spain
ISO 3166-2	ES-ZA
Official languages	Spanish
Statute of Autonomy	June 9, 1982
Parliament	Cortes Generales
Congress seats	3
Senate seats	4
Website	http://www.zamoradipu.es/

Zamora (pronounced: [θaˈmoɾa]) is a Spanish province of western Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile and León.

The present-day province of Zamora province was one of three provinces formed from the former Kingdom of León in 1833, when Spain was re-organised into 49 provinces.

It is bordered by the provinces of Ourense, León, Valladolid, and Salamanca, and by Portugal.

Of the 195,665 people (2002) in the province, nearly a third live in the capital, Zamora. This province has 250 municipalities.

Main sights

• Historical churches and buildings in Zamora
• Benavente: 70 km north from the capital. Santa María church and Castle of La Mota (now the Parador of Benavente). The parador Fernando II de Leon as it is called occupies the castle- palace built in the twelfth century and is part of the former walled enclosure of the town.
• Toro, 39 km away from Zamora. Façade of the 'Palacio de las Leyes' and also the Santa María la Mayor collegiate church (known in Spanish as La Colegiata). Its wines were the first to be taken to America by Christopher Columbus.
• Sanabria: on the border with Galicia. Declared a Historic and Artistic centre and set within the countryside near the Sanabria Lake.
• Fermoselle, located on the border with Portugal and on the edge of the Arribes del Duero Natural Park. The Arribes feature a hunting reserve in the Culebra mountain range (with the highest population of wolves in the whole of Europe).
• Villafáfila. The lakes, in ancient times beaches, still retain the sand and fossils is home to numerous species of European birds. It is second largest water reserve in Spain after Doñana.

See also

• List of municipalities in Zamora
• Toro, Zamora
• Kingdom of León