Door of Palmas

The Puerta de Palmas, formerly the Puerta Nueva, is a monumental gateway of the wall that surrounded the city of Badajoz (Spain), situated opposite the Puente de Palmas. Its construction was completed in 1551. It is one of the most representative monuments of the city. This monument is among the little that remains of a fortified city that needed its walls for defence in past centuries. In the 17th century another gate was opened opposite the Puente de la Autonomía, near the Ermita de los Pajaritos, and its name changed from Puerta Nueva to Puerta de Palmas. The gate consists of two cylindrical towers flanking an archway with Renaissance lines on its exterior.

The uses of the Puerta de Palmas have changed over time and, although it is now mostly a roundabout, it has served as everything from a lookout post to lodgings or even a prison. For a long time it also kept a function as a fortified access point to the city, and later as a control point for customs and tax purposes.

In 1933 the demolition was approved of some of the sections of wall flanking the Puerta de Palmas in order to allow the natural growth of the city of Badajoz, although this demolition affected only the wall between the former bastion of San Juan and the bastion of Santiago. This reform, together with the extension of the Puente de Palmas, made it possible to link the city with the railway station, which had been in operation since 1863. In this way the Puerta de Palmas has been left in the middle of the city, heading the Puente de Palmas that gives it its name and definitively losing its military function. Although it is an emblem of the city, it was not until 1948 that posting bills on the façade of the Puerta de Palmas was prohibited.

Machine-translated from “Puerta de Palmas” on the Spanish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Door of Palmas ranks #2,074 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #74 of the 602 mapped in Spain. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 4,275 times in the last 60 days, more than 82% of the atlas. 8 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Évora, 88 km away. See how Spain compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Spanish) ↗