Velilla del Río Carrión
PalenciaCastilla y León
Romance compound. Velilla, diminutive of Latin vela ('sail, tent' or variant of villa), plus del Río Carrión, pre-Roman hydronym of the Pisuerga tributary.
Mining town of the Palentine Mountain, centre of the Carrión coal basin between 1900 and 1990. The Velilla thermal power station, active between 1964 and 2020, was among the principal coal-fired stations of the northern peninsula.
Evolution of the name
- villella late Latin 5th–9th centuries
- Velilla medieval Castilian from the 10th century
Glossary
- Diminutive
- A derived form indicating smaller size or affection, formed with suffixes such as -illo, -ito, -uelo, -ete. Substantivised plural diminutives abound in toponymy: Hornillos, Boadilla, Calzadilla, Comillas, Pradillos.
- Hydronym
- A place name derived from the name of a river, lake or watercourse (Carrión, Eo, Sella, Deba, Cueza).
- Pre-Roman
- Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
- Velilla thermal power station
- Coal-fired thermoelectric station located in Velilla del Río Carrión (Palencia), built between 1962 and 1964 and closed in June 2020 within the European energy transition plan. It produced 750 MW of electricity consuming coal from the Carrión mining basin. Its two 120-metre cooling towers marked the landscape of the Palentine Mountain for half a century.
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