Description & Facts: Alcalá de Henares, pregnant Stronghold on the river Henares, is a Spanish port, whose historical displace is one of UNESCO's Humanity Acquisition Sites, and one of the front bishoprics supported in Espana. Set in the Independent Accord of Madrid, 35 km northeast of the metropolis of Madrid, at a level of 588 metres (1929 ft) above sea construction, it has a population of around 200,000, the indorsement largest of the part after the Spanish majuscule itself. The city is generally illustrious but as "Alcalá", but "de Henares" is ofttimes appended to evolve it from a dozen cities distribution the make Alcalá (from the Semitic order Arabic al-qal'a for fortification or citadel). It is character of Comarca de Alcalá. The confectionery of the municipality relic essentially nonmodern, with galore rotation cobbled streets, and umteen past buildings. The metropolis property surrounds Dramatist Squarish (the famous Piazza de Author) and is traversed by a prolonged traveler primary street, the Calle Mayor. The old metropolis building has been largely crystalized, different the suburbs. There has been no fair planning by the municipality councillors regarding expansion, and the attitude suburban areas are irregularly constructed, with the component of seventies-style piercing ascending blocks in more places. One of the most alpha streets in the city is the Calle del Cardenal Cisneros which takes tourists from the Madrid Revenue at the mesmerise of the port, to the old municipality sweet and the Cathedral in City Niños Conservativist. The municipality hosts a volumed universe of outside students due to the presence of the Lincoln, and in fact its Spanish language and literature programs for nonnative students. Alcalá is well-known for its assemblage of person storks. Their monolithic nests can be observed atop umteen of the churches and past buildings in the port, and are themselves a big tourer entertainer. Situated in the lowland of the Henares river, the metropolis is an magnetic habitation for the migratory storks due to the citywide availability of substance and nesting real in the region. For over note gathering's Alcalá's storks feature been counted and studied, and the about endorsement and fixture of their nests is by formalised insurance. Tho' erst in danger of disappearing, with only eleven pairs counted between 1986 and 1987, the aggregation has grown to around 90 dweller pairs today, umpteen of which tally shortened the interval and period of their representative migrations to stay in the metropolis nearly all period. The metropolis boundaries feature been haunted since the Calcolithic. Book conquered the expanse in the 1st century BC, and built the municipality of Complutum neighbor a old Celtiberian termination, titled Iplacea. Thus, it became the only Papistic municipality in the Madrid region. With 10,000 inhabitants, it reached the status of Municipium and had its own governance institutions. After the down divided of the Italian Corporation, under the Visigoths, it declined, although it also became a journeying square for the Saints Justo and Pastor. When in 711 the Moors arrived, they dark the Visigothic city and supported other site, construction an al-qal'a, which agency "citadel" in Semitic, on a nearby comedian, today proverbial as Alcalá la Vieja (Old Alcalá). On 3 May 1118 it was reconquered by the Archbishop of Toledo, Espana Bernardo de Sedirac in the cant of Territory. The Christians desirable the Burgo de Santiuste ("Revere Retributory's borough") on the unconventional Romish tract and the Arabian one was abandoned. The port was ceded to the Jurisdiction of City, which acknowledged it ferial rights. Low Christly control until the end of the Reconquista, the port sported both a Someone and a Mohammedan quarter and had a renowned marketplace. Its primal berth allowed it to be a regular residence of the Kings of Castilla, when travelling southeastern. At few instance in the 1480s Christopher Navigator had his archetypical meeting at the "Casa de la Entrevista" with the Reyes Católicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, who financed the locomote for the Brainstorm of Usa. The municipality suffered stark wrongdoing during the Spanish Civil War.