Alfoz (territory)
The geographical term alfoz was used in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages to describe the rural territory, including villages and localities, belonging to a corresponding town, or villa in Spanish. The villa and its alfoz, under the authority of the town government, constituted what was called a Comunidad de Villa y Tierra, an autonomous political division within the kingdom. At the center of this community, the villa comprised an urban area and often a castle and a fortified wall.
By the 12th century, the alfoces had fiscal, judicial and military functions. Furthermore, they lent themselves to the communal use of land for silvopastoral agriculture; however, in the year 1100, the Spanish kings began to allocate portions of land to the Roman Catholic Church and the nobility, an act that undermined the very purpose of the alfoz.
The alfoz and its villa formed what would later be known as a municipality. The word alfoz comes from the Arabic al-hawz, meaning "rural district", and remains to this day an element of many place names in Spanish geography.
Placenames in Spain are:
