Elx Palm Grove. A World Heritage Site

Elx Palm Grove. A World Heritage Site

The Palm Grove: fruit of irrigation

The Palm Grove is neither a natural wood nor is it a chance collection of palm trees; it is a man-made plantation of date palms with a design as traditional as a Renaissance garden. However in spite of its beauty, it is not a garden.

Elx’s Palm Grove is at the heart of a farming system dictated by its irrigation system. As such it is a productive landscape that cannot be fully understood without taking into account the extensive and complex hydraulic system that both supplies the palms with water and determines its man-made layout. It is no older therefore than the network of water channels that brought it into being.

Area registered with UNESCO

Each detail of the Historical Palm Grove of Elx is painstakingly registered in the 1997 General Town Planning Plan that also includes all of the other palm tree plantations within the borough.

The area proposed for registration is a single scenic unit, appearing as a continuous, compact mass of palm trees (plantations) surrounding the city centre on the western side of the Vinalopó river.

In spite of their age and following the instructions of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the isolated plantations are not included in the area proposed for registration.

The area proposed for registration includes:

• Traditional plantations
• Plantations containing schools, sports facilities, hotels, health centres, clinics, hospitals etc. and churches
• Plantations containing private houses
• Links between pathways and tracks