Castell

A castell (Catalan pronunciation: [kəsˈteʎ]) is a human tower built traditionally in festivals at many locations within Catalonia. At these festivals, several colles castelleres (group of people who do these towers) often succeed in building and dismantling a tower's structure. On November 16, 2010, castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Origin

The tradition of building castells originated in the Ball dels Valencians in Valls, near the city of Tarragona, first documented in 1712. Over the course of the 18th century, the spread to other towns and cities in the area, including Vilafranca del Penedès and Tarragona, though it wasn't until the last 50 years that the practice of building Castells began to spread to the rest of Catalonia.

While in Catalonia, the Ball dels Valencians began to focus more on the acrobatic nature of building ever-taller human towers, its more religious and allegorical origins remain in a similar tradition, the muixeranga, which is performed in the Valencian city of Algemesí.

Castellón

Castellón (Catalan: Castelló) may refer to:

Places

People

Sport

Province of Castellón

Castellón (Spanish: [kasteˈʎon]) or Castelló (Valencian: [kasteˈʎo]) is a province in the northern part of the Valencian Community, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia to the south, Teruel to the west, Tarragona to the north, and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The western side of the province is in the mountainous Sistema Ibérico area.

Castellón's capital is Castellón de la Plana (Catalan: Castelló de la Plana). The province had a population of 501,237 in 2002, 30% of whom were residing in the capital, 60% in its metropolitan area, and 85% along the coastline. As of 2012, the population had since grown to 604,564 people. The province, and in particular its idle large airport, has become a symbol of the wasteful spending and corruption prior to the 2008–13 Spanish financial crisis.

It is a bilingual territory, with many inhabitants speaking both Spanish and the local, co-official language of Valencian. The relation of the latter to the very closely related and mutually understandable Catalan is a source of some controversy.