Habsburg and Bourbon Spain

Badajoz

Today: Spain

Years: 1492–1833
Role: Capital of Extremadura and frontier fortress

In 1524 the Juntas de Badajoz, of Spanish and Portuguese delegates, met in the city, and in 1580 Felipe II moved the court there; Queen Anne of Austria died in it. The Portuguese Restoration War (1640 to 1668) made it a fortress town, with a great Portuguese siege in 1658 and the Vauban-style bastioned walls that surround it. From 1653 to 1833 it was the capital of the province of Extremadura and seat of the Captaincy General.

What to see today

Catedral de San Juan Bautista de Badajoz (Catedral de San Juan Bautista): Cathedral, 1509 to 1706
Puerta de Palmas: Gate, 1551
Iglesia de Santa Catalina: Church, c. 1515 to 1600
Plaza Alta: Square, 1699 to 1703

Get directions

Google Maps Waze

Open in the map Read more on Wikipedia

We count visits ourselves, with no cookies and nothing stored on your device. To count people rather than clicks, we keep a one-way code derived from your connection and browser for at most 48 hours and then delete it; what remains is totals per page that identify no one. We never store your IP. We also use Plausible, analytics hosted in the European Union that likewise sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device, to learn which sites send readers here and how many searches are run, never what is searched for.