Castile-La Mancha (Spanish Castilla -La Mancha) is an autonomous community of Spain.

Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities.

The capital of Castile-La Mancha is Toledo.

Castile-La Mancha was formerly grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile ("Castilla la Nueva"), but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of semi-autonomous regions (las autonomías); it was separated due to great economic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces.

It is in this province where the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote by Cervantes takes place. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau (manxa means parched earth in Arabic; hence La Mancha is not definitively related to the Spanish word mancha, or stain, which is derived from Latin macula) it remains a symbol of the Spanish culture with its sunflowers, windmills, Manchego cheese and, of course, El Quijote.

La Mancha's history has been tumultuous. Going as far back as the Muslim domination of the Iberian Peninsula, La Mancha was the centre of many battles between Christian and Muslim forces. Moreover, this region saw a lot of struggle in the 14th and 15th century with the unification of Castile and Aragon in 1492 under Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand.

Castile-La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities:


Albacete is a province of central Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha.

It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia, Alicante, Murcia, Granada, Jaén, Ciudad Real, and Cuenca.

Albacete has a population of 384,640 (2005). Its capital is Albacete. Other important towns (with more than 10 000 inhabitants) are: Hellín, Almansa, Villarrobledo, La Roda and Caudete.

Ciudad Real is a province of central Spain, in the south-western part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Cuenca, Albacete, Jaén, Córdoba, Badajoz, and Toledo.

Its capital is Ciudad Real. The province has a population of 484,338 (2002), of whom just over an eighth reside in the capital.

The Parquet National de las Tablas de Daimiel is located in Ciudad Real, which also shares the Parque National de Cabañeros with Toledo province.

Cuenca is a province of central Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia (including its exclave Rincón de Ademuz), Albacete, Ciudad Real, Toledo, Madrid, Guadalajara, and Teruel.

201,614 people (2002) live in the province. Its capital is Cuenca, where nearly a quarter of the population live, some 46,800 people. There are 238 municipalities in Cuenca.

Other populous towns and municipalities include Tarancón, San Clemente, Spain, Quintanar Del Rey, Motilla Del Palancar, Mota Del Cuervo and Las Pedroñeras.

Guadalajara is a province of central Spain, in the northern part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Cuenca, Madrid, Segovia, Soria, Zaragoza, and Teruel.

Its population is 213.505 (2006). The area of the province covers 12.190 km². Its capital is Guadalajara, where nearly 35% of the province's population lives. There are 288 municipalities in Guadalajara, of which more than three-quarters are villages with populations less than 200.

Toledo is a province of central Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha.

It is bordered by the provinces of Madrid, Cuenca, Ciudad Real, Badajoz, Caceres, and Ávila.

Of the province's 546,538 people (2002), only about 1/9 live in the capital, Toledo, which is also capital of the autonomous community?

The province contains 204 municipalities. The smallest municipality in Spain, Illán de Vacas, with a population of 5, is in Toledo province. See List of municipalities in Toledo.

The province shares the Parque National de Cabañeros with Ciudad Real province.