Mollerussa
Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña
Lleida · LéridaCatalunya · Cataluña
Catalan toponym derived from mollera ('humid, soft, muddy land'), with augmentative suffix -ussa. Description of the alluvial landscape of the lower Urgell before the Urgell Canal.
Evolution of the name
- mollis Latin 5th–9th centuries
- Mollerussa medieval Catalan from the 14th century
Reflections, to the letter
The name comes from mollera, the soft waterlogged ground this plain once was, before its water was tamed. An old belief recorded by Francisco de Zamora confirms it: water poured inland at els Coladors would seep up here as damp. Since 1861 the Canal d'Urgell turned that mire into orchard, and crossing its irrigation channels the walker treads the very softness that named the place.
Glossary
- Urgell Canal
- 19th-century hydraulic work (1853-1862) that transformed 70,000 hectares of cereal steppe of the Urgell-Segrià into productive irrigation. Layout of 144 kilometres between Ponts (upper Segre) and Castelldans (Garrigues), with secondary derivations totalling 850 kilometres. Its construction doubled Catalan agricultural production between 1862 and 1900 and consolidated the model of intensive irrigation of the western Mediterranean.
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Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña