Castile (historical region)

Castile or Castille (/kæˈstiːl/; Spanish: Castilla [kasˈtiʎa] ^ⓘ) is a territory of imprecise limits located in Spain.^[1] The use of the concept of Castile relies on the assimilation (via a metonymy) of a 19th-century determinist geographical notion, that of Castile as Spain's centro mesetario ("tableland core", connected to the Meseta Central) with a long-gone historical entity of diachronically variable territorial extension (the Kingdom of Castile).^[2]

The proposals advocating for a particular semantic codification/closure of the concept (a dialogical construct) are connected to essentialist arguments relying on the reification of something that does not exist beyond the social action of those building Castile not only by identifying with it as a homeland of any kind, but also in opposition to it.^[3] A hot topic concerning the concept of Castile is its relation with Spain, insofar intellectuals, politicians, writers, or historians have either endorsed, nuanced or rejected the idea of the maternity of Spain by Castile, thereby permeating non-scholar discourses about Castile.^[4]

Castile's name is generally thought to derive from "land of castles" (castle in Spanish is castillo) in reference to the castles built in the area to consolidate the Christian Reconquest from the Moors.^[5]

The Encyclopædia Britannica ascribes the concept to the sum of the regions of Old Castile and New Castile,^[5] as they were formally defined in the 1833 territorial division of Spain.