Spanish Lapland
Known as the “Lapland of the South”, this area, twice the size of Belgium, has one of the lowest population density in Europe.1.311 towns, some abandoned or with a few inhabitants, the Lapland of the South (Laponia de Sur) has a population of eight people per square kilometre. Only Lapland, in the north pole, has a lower population density and that is mainly due to the extreme climate conditions.
From 1950 to 1970 a great part of the Spanish countryside moved to big cities in search for new opportunities leaving behind an empty space that has been largely forgotten in the last decades.
Pilar and Francisco Burillo, two researchers, define this phenomenon as ‘demotanasia’, a process that because of political actions, direct or indirect, and omission of them, is causing the slow and silent disappearance of the population of a territory that migrates and leaves an area without generational replacement.
