Haro, Spain (No. 5)
Haro, a city in La Rioja located on a hill in the basins of the Tirón and Ebro rivers, has medicinal waters. Its name is undoubtedly phonetic result (loss of /f/ in initial position) of the Latin faru, lighthouse, here in the sense of beacon, watchtower probably in the military technical sense.
The Ebro River and the Oja-Tirón River pass through the municipality. The Ebro enters from the north, coming from Miranda de Ebro, through the area of the Conchas de Haro, where it separates the Montes Obarenes from the Sierra de Cantabria. Continue to draw wide meanders, making the limit with Labastida and Briñas, and leaving from the south in the direction of Gimileo. The Oja-Tirón River enters from the west from Anguciana; in the Arrauri dam part of its waters are channeled (Arrauri channel) to lead them to the hydroelectric power station of San José, returning them back to the riverbed that ends up flowing into the Ebro near the neighborhood of the wineries in the so-called "mouth of the Ebro". By a donation of 1421 it is known that at that date the channel of Arrauri already existed, which was probably already used to move mills.
The abundance of water creates a landscape of groves and poplars, which provides irrigated land for horticultural crops. The soils of the area are formed mainly by limestones of the Upper Cretaceous. Its permeability forms aquifers recharged by the infiltration of rainfall.
The main population center is surrounded by three hills: Cerro de la Mota or El Castillo, also called Atalaya, Cerro de Santa Lucía, where the water tanks are located, taking advantage of the fact that it is above the rest of the city, and the Cerro de Santo Domingo. For centuries, the population has remained located between these hills, due to this natural strangulation, expanding in the late twentieth century through the existing plains in the direction of Gimileo.
The relief is mountainous to the north, where the Ebro is embedded in the Conchas de Haro, and predominantly flat in the center and in the south. The altitude ranges from 782 meters to the northwest, already in the Montes Obarenes, and 435 meters on the banks of the Ebro. The city rises to 479 meters above sea level.
Source: Wikipedia
