Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Rivas-Vaciamadrid is a municipality situated at the meeting point of the Jarama and Manzanares rivers in the Alcalá comarca in the autonomous community of Madrid. It is located approximately 20 kilometres from central Madrid.

It has been one of the fastest growing municipalities in Spain in recent years, growing from 500 inhabitants in the 1980s to its current figure of almost 60,000, the population is projected to rise to 100,000 by 2014. [http://www.abc.es/informacion/especial-rivas/urbanistico.asp abc.es ::: Descubre Rivas Vaciamadrid ] ] It is bordered to the north by Madrid and San Fernando de Henares, to the south by Arganda del Rey and San Martín de la Vega, to the east by Mejorada del Campo and Velilla de San Antonio, and to the west by Getafe and Madrid (the district of Villa de Vallecas.)

Despite the high urban growth, almost three quarters of the municipality form part of the south eastern regional park, making it an important ecological centre with numerous lakes and various species of wildlife and fauna.

History

In 1845, the area of Vaciamadrid, previously part of Villa de Vallecas, was joined to the town of Rivas, with the unified municipality originally called Ribas de Jarama. The area was devastated during the Spanish civil war and had to be rebuilt in the post-civil war period. In 1954 the name was changed to its current title. At the end of the 1980s the area was designated as a future nucleus for new urbanisation projects under a prject titled Rivas Urbanizaciones (Rivas Urbanisations). The first developments were those in the current districts of Pablo Iglesias and Covibar.

In 2004 the municipal boundary with the city of Madrid was altered. This involved the transfer of areas known as Covibar-Madrid to Rivas-Vaciamadrid. In exchange, some uninhabited areas in the Los Berrocales district were transferred to Madrid in order to allow the construction of a new housing project.

Local politics

Together with San Fernando de Henares and Casarrubuelos, it has been one of the best areas for United left in the Madrid community. In 2007, the party won twelve of the twenty five council seats available, with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the People's Party (Spain) each winning six seats. [ [http://www.madrid.org/iestadis/fijas/estructu/general/otros/descarga/locales07t6.pdf council seats by municipality in the Madrid community] ]

Source: [ [http://www.madrid.org/iestadis/fijas/estructu/general/otros/eleccionescm_locales.htm Madrid community local election results] ]

Transport

Since 1999, the area has been connected to central Madrid by two stations on Line 9 of the Madrid metro. Rivas urbanizaciones, located in the Covibar district and Rivas Vaciamadrid: located between the A3 road and the area known locally as Rivas Pueblo. A third metro station, Rivas futura, is currently under construction and is due to be completed in the latter part of 2008.

By road, it is linked to Madrid by the A-3: exits 15 (Urbanizaciones), 17 (Rivas Futura) and 18 (Rivas-Vaciamadrid). Numerous buses also serve the area.

Festivals

The main festivals are the festival of Romería del Cristo de Rivas (29 September), San Isidro (15 May), the popular festivals of Rivas Urbanizaciones (second weekend of September) and the festivals of the Urbanisation La Partija on the 15 June.

Education

Locally there are 15 kindergartens (6 public and 9 private), 13 public primary education colleges, 5 secondary education institutions and one private college.

ports

The area includes two teams who play at the top level in their respective sports, Rivas Osos in American football since the year 2000 and Rivas Futura en women's basketball.

References

External links

* [http://www.rivas-vaciamadrid.org/ Rivas-Vaciamadrid council homepage]
* [http://www.madrid.org/desvan/almudena/FichaMunicipal.icm?codMunZona=1230 Statistics institute of Madrid]