Ribeira Sacra Waterscape

The nominated property shows an exceptional cultural waterscape embedded between the spectacular river canyons located at the confluence of the rivers Sil and Miño (Galicia, Spain), on the Atlantic coast of rainy Iberia, popularly known as Ribeira Sacra.

It is an epic landscape brought about by the culture and heritage of water, sustained by its countless streams, brooks and rivers that define its unique identity, beauty, composition and settlement patterns. It illustrates the origin and evolution of a territory sculpted by water and a paradigm of a water culture, in which the traces that have marked its construction over more than 1,500 years of continuous occupation can be vividly recognised, and that has its origins in the ancient hermit and monastic tradition rooted in this area.

The culture of water in these places is reflected in an exceptional water heritage that includes archaeological sites, the water-associated devices of all periods, including an important hydraulic industrial heritage, the unique drainage systems of the socalcos or crop terraces, as well as multiple other vernacular manifestations in the form of sacralised fountains and mines, canals, dams, passes and bridges, river routes and other unique works associated with water.

The power of water is a fundamental part of the cultural landscape narrative. The area of the nominated property contains an exceptional catalogue of heritage elements of hydraulic use that continuously bear witness to the energy self-sufficiency of each period, including traditional water mills from different centuries, whose works survive in exceptional number and density around the area of the property, followed by the mini-power stations or fábricas de luz (factories producing electricity) that emerged at the end of the 19th century, until the hydroelectric reservoirs of the mid-20th century arrived.