Tres Cantos

Camino de Madrid

Comunidad de Madrid

Descriptive toponym of modern Castilian. The compound Tres Cantos refers to the three stone markers (cantos, in old Castilian, 'natural unworked stone') that historically marked one of the vertices of the municipal term of Colmenar Viejo, from which the current municipality segregated in 1991. The urban foundation of the satellite city is from 1971: one of the youngest toponyms with municipal entity in Spain.

Cantum, a late Hispanic Latin word of disputed pre-Roman origin (some authors derive it from pre-Roman Celtic *cantos, 'corner, angle, rocky place'), passed to Castilian as canto with two coexisting meanings: natural stone rounded by erosion, and edge or angle of a surface. Castilian toponymy abounds in compounds: Cantopalos, Canto Blanco, Cantarranas. Tres Cantos refers to three large stone markers, raised in the 16th century as markers of the demarcation between the term of Colmenar Viejo and those of neighbouring localities; the markers were documented in the Ensenada Cadastre (1751–1754). The toponym was applied to the rural setting for centuries until the Development Plan of the Madrid Metropolitan Area of 1971 raised there a satellite city projected by Julio Cano Lasso, Antonio Vázquez de Castro and other architects. The municipal segregation from Colmenar Viejo took place in 1991. The current population is close to fifty thousand inhabitants.

Evolution of the name

  1. cantum (latín) late Latin 5th–9th centuries
  2. canto medieval Castilian from the 10th century
  3. Tres Cantos contemporary Castilian from 1971

Reflections, to the letter

Tres Cantos keeps no old stone, yet its name is made of stone: three great granite boulders, visible from afar beside the old coach road from Madrid to Segovia, once marked this corner of the district when it still belonged to Colmenar Viejo. The town was born in 1971 on open pasture, but it dragged the memory of those three rocks into its name. The pilgrim crosses one of Spain's youngest towns, named for the oldest masses of stone on the spot.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Descriptive toponym
A place name describing a function or feature of the site (as opposed to anthroponyms, which commemorate a person). Viana = "place of the road"; Fromista = "of wheat"; Hornillos = "of the ovens".
Fuero
A medieval legal privilege granted by a king to a town, conferring special rights and freedoms. A key instrument of medieval Christian repopulation, attracting settlers by offering jurisdictional autonomy.
Pre-Roman
Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Satellite city
20th-century urban model consisting of a planned population at the margin of a main metropolitan core, with its own residential, commercial and service facilities but functional dependence on the neighbouring urban centre. Tres Cantos (1971), Sabadell (Ciutat Badia, 1972) and Tres Cantos Norte (projected but not built) are the three main satellite cities of the Spanish developmentalist period.

Sources

  • Cano Lasso, J. — Tres Cantos, ciudad satélite

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Camino de Madrid

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Segovia
  3. Puerto de la Fuenfría
  4. Cercedilla
  5. Mataelpino
  6. Manzanares el Real
  7. Colmenar Viejo
  8. Tres Cantos
  9. Madrid