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Desert de les Palmes Range

mountain in Spain

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ5264063 ↗
Source-derived summary

Desert de les Palmes (Valencian pronunciation: [deˈzɛɾd de les ˈpalmes], Spanish: Desierto de las Palmas), also known as Serra del Desert de les Palmes, is an 18.8 km long mountain range in the Plana Alta comarca, Valencian Community, Spain. Its highest point is Bartolo (729 m).

The Ermita de La Magdalena 40°02′04″N 0°00′20″W, an important church for Castellonenc people, is located on a hill at the southern end of the range. The Prime Meridian crosses the Desert de les Palmes roughly in the middle.

The Columbretes Islands can be seen on clear days in the horizon looking seaward from the Desert de les Palmes heights.

Origin of the name

Desert, the name of the range, originated in an ancient eremitical settlement or hermitage, known in Catalan as Desert, that was located in the mountain range.

Palmes on the other hand refers to the abundance of Chamaerops humilis palms in the range. Short, stocky, and growing in clumps, Chamaerops humilis is the only palm endemic to Europe.

Location

The Desert de les Palmes stretches in a NE - SW direction in the municipal terms of Benicàssim, Cabanes, La Pobla Tornesa, Borriol and Castelló de la Plana. It is located near the Mediterranean coastline, crossed by the highway between Barcelona and Valencia.

Editorial summary

“Desert de les Palmes Range” enters the record as mountain in Spain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Desert, Palmes and Range can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current 210-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Desert, Palmes and Range.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Desert de les Palmes Range” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Desert, Palmes and Range provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5264063. VIAF identifies the subject as 159595943. The Library of Congress control number is n93091031. Authority coordinates are 40.084, 0.041. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Desert de les Palmes Range”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Desert de les Palmes Range primary sources, Desert de les Palmes Range archive and Desert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Desert de les Palmes Range”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Desert de les Palmes Range” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.