Parcent
Parcent Tourist Information
Parcent is a small Spanish village in the Pop Valley of La Marina Alta in the Alicante Province, which is located in the Valencian region of Spain.
Parcent has a population of about 1100 and is about one hours drive north of the city of Alicante.
It features the small but beautiful Holy Virgin church, and is surrounded by rolling hills and mountains. Writer Gabriel Miró (1879-1930) was a resident of Parcent and called it a "paradise between the mountains". It is also close to Jalon (written as Xaló in Catalan), which is famous for its excellent wine production and markets.
The traditional economy of Parcent relies on almond and orange farming in the surrounding area.
The name "Parcent" is of Latin origin. Later, it was a Moorish town until the forces of James I of Aragon conquered it in 1256 CE. There was a major outbreak of leprosy in Parcent in 1850 and by 1887 20% of the residents of Parcent were afflicted. This apparently motivated the inclusion of passages about the disease in Miró's two so-called "Oleza" novels.
The 2006 census revealed that Parcents population was 1,019 inhabitants. It was also found that about 35.10% of the population of Parcent were not Spanish citizens, but most of these foreigners were from the European Union.
