База қаласы: Гранада провинциясының тарихы мен географиясы

Town in Granada, Spain

Baza is a town in the province of Granada in Andalusia (southern Spain), twice a former Catholic bishopric and now a Latin Catholic titular see as Basti.

It has 21,000 inhabitants (2003). It is situated at 844 m above sea level, in the Hoya de Baza, a valley of the Sierra Nevada, not far from the Gallego River. This town gives its name to the Sierra de Baza. The dome shaped mountain of Jabalcón overlooks the town from the north west. The Municipality lies at the southern edge of the Altiplano de Granada

The sculpture of the Lady of Baza is a prehistoric artifact discovered in this area on 22 July 1971. The city was founded by the Iberians in the 4th century BC and named Basti, the name by which it was known in Roman times. As part of the Roman province of Tarraco, it was an important commercial center and the bishopric was doomed. In 1489, during the Granada War, the city fell to Queen Isabella I of Castile, after a stubborn defense lasting seven months. The cannons still adorn the Alameda. On 10 August 1810, French forces under Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult defeated a large Spanish force near the town. The former cathedral of Our Lady of the Incarnation, however, rebuilt on the rubble of the mosque which the original had been converted into, retains the status of co cathedral of the Diocese of Guadix Baza (suffragan of Granada).

Until 1985, Baza was served by a railway station on the Ferrocarril del Almanzora, which linked Murcia del Carmen to Granada via Lorca, Baza and Guadix. Reopening this line has been proposed. The northern branch of the A 92 highway also passes next to the town.

The 1489 siege of Baza is described in Washington Irving's book The Conquest of Granada.