Located on the banks of the Guadalquivir river, Córdoba was mentioned for the first time in relation with the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (father of Hannibal), who renamed the settlement Kartuba, from Kart-Juba ("the City of Juba", a Numidian commander who had died in a battle nearby). In Roman times, but also under Byzantine Empire, and under the Visigoths, it was an important city, but it experienced its golden period under the Moors. Conquered in 711 by a Muslim army, it become firstly the capital of the independent Muslim emirate of al-Andalus, later a Caliphate itself.
During the caliphate apogee (1000 AD), Córdoba was one of the the most populous and advanced cities in the world, as well as a great cultural, political, financial and economic centre. In the next centuries it fell into a steady decline, continued also after it was captured by King Ferdinand III of Castile, during the Spanish Reconquista (1236), only in the 20th century knowing a certain recovery. Today, Córdoba has the second largest Old town in Europe, the largest urban area in the world declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO (in 1984, with extension in 1994).
The most important building and symbol of the city, the Great Mosque of Córdoba (transformed in cathedral in 1236 by Ferdinand III), alongside the Roman bridge, are the best known facet of the city (both are in the first postcard). Abd-al-Rahman I began to build the Great Mosque in 786, on the site of a Roman temple of Janus which had been converted into a church by the Visigoths, with the intention of creating a structure that outshone the mosque of Damascus. Work on it continued over the two succeeding centuries, and today it is regarded as the one of the most accomplished monuments of Renaissance and Moorish architecture.
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