Location
This town lies 18 km northwest of the city of Madrid; little or nothing remains of the former activity of its inhabitants, that of growing cereal crops and vegetables, and raising livestock. The industrial and even the services sectors have reduced agricultural activity to a minimum, and steep population growth has increased the number of inhabitants to over 50,000.
Origin of Town Name
The name of the town seems to come from the word 'majada', which refers to 'the place where livestock is gathered together at night, and shepherds take shelter'.
Nature
Part of its territory lies within the regional park of Curso Medio del río Guadarrama y su Entorno (Middle Course of the Guadarrama River and its surrounding area) ,which was created in 1999 with the precise intention of ending the serious threats posed by this urban transformation and over-exploitation to the environment of the stretch of the river in question.
Useful Facts
If little remains of this former activity, equally scarce are the remains of what was the village of Majadahonda: perhaps the main square, the town hall and the parish church of Santa Catalina, but very little else. This is because the Civil War, which set Spaniard against Spaniard between 1936 and 1939, destroyed nearly all the buildings in the ferocity of the battlefront in this area; virtually a new town had to be built. It was in the 1960's that the town began to grow, and over the course of the decade became a city, part of the urban area of the nation's capital; a few years later, developments of the garden-city type sprang up along the carretera del Plantío.
The IT Faculty of the Pontificia de Salamanca University is located here. In addition, Majadahonda is a special draw for shopping and entertainment pursuits, as demonstrated by its many shopping and leisure centres.
