The town with the shortest name in Spain is in Euskadi, the smallest town in the Basque Country is located in Valencia another one that is shaped like Spain is in Barcelona and the one with the biggest name is located in the same region of Madrid. Spain’s geographical curiosities are unavoidable for journalism.
And Gargantilla del Lozoya and Pinilla de Buitrago -which with all the length of its name is reminiscent of those noble or highborn surnames- is with all its 44 characters the town with the longest name in Spain. The second position or its closest rival, if anyone was curious, is the Girona town of Crùìlles Monells i Sant Sadurní de l’Heura with no more and no less than 42 characters.
Two towns in one
Gargantilla and Pinilla go hand in hand like Brighton and Hove – which like we were discovered by the friends of La Media Inglesa is the only soccer team in England with two locations in its name.
And its history goes back several centuries although the justification of the name refers to the union of two districts (Gargantilla on the one hand and Pinilla on the other) in the mid-nineteenth century. Between 1920 and 2001 the municipality was called Gargantilla del Lozoya, at which time it changed its name to Gargantilla del Lozoya and Pinilla de Buitrago.
The gentilicio makes the former municipality of Pinilla de Buitrago invisible. The inhabitants of this village of 360 inhabitants (more than one character for every ten inhabitants, by the way) are known as gargantillenses or gargantillanos.
As a curiosity for onomastic tourists (if any), a useful service information is that very close is the Riosequillo reservoir and consequently its swimming pool, which is the largest in the region. And all this just an hour’s drive from Madrid.