Zahara de los Atunes

Historia

Zahara de los Atunes is a village on the Costa de la Luz of Spain in the province of Cádiz and the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is noted for its excellent beaches, an outdoor cinema, and la Iglesia Del Carmen church where, curiously, tuna (caught in Almadraba traps) was butchered and salted. Also in the town there are excellent facilities including a variety of restaurants, cafes and hotels.It is located 73 kilometers south of the provincial capital, Cadiz or 177 miles of Seville and 40 miles west of Gibraltar. The village is bordered to the south by the municipality of Tarifa and to the north by Barbate.EtymologyArnald Steiger, author of a Spanish work entitled "Contribution to the phonetics of Spanish-Arabic and Arabic expressions in the Iberian Romanesque and Sicilian language" says that the name comes from the Arabic which is also documented in ancient Portuguese sáfaro, meaning rough, barren or rocky ground, which in old Spanish is çafara.Wilhelm Giese' documents confirm this etymology and adds that in Andalusian Arabic the meaning is barren desert (as is the ancient Portuguese form derived from it, would tent to confirm). Interestingly, in Alpujarra, in the municipality of Trevélez, the adjective for bush or scrub is 'zahareña and in Granada, one of the roughest routes to Sierra Nevada bears the name 'Zahareña'.