Probably you have received the information, one way or another, because the issue is causing a stir (at an international level). An essay of which Álvaro Anguix is a co-author has been published and which discovers and demonstrates, with an avalanche of reasons and data, that Munera is the name of the place, to which Cervantes refers, in which the possible most famous phrase in literature: “Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember”.

The essay, published in Spanish with the title “Un lugar de la Mancha. La patria de don Quijote al descubierto” (“Somewhere in La Mancha, Don Quixote’s homeland brought to light”), answers the two questions that haven’t been resolved for more than 400 years satisfactorily: Which is the famous place where the nobleman of La Mancha lived? and Why didn’t Cervantes want to remember its name?

Those of you who can read the 166-page essay will see that there are all kinds of reasons in it, from the most literary to the geographical ones. And, precisely, that in this blog is what matters to us, the geographical analysis has been fundamental to corroborate that everything said by Cervantes fitted, with surprising precision, once Munera was located as the place. Distances and routes, in the different means of transport that appear in Don Quixote, geographical characteristics, evidence of the existence of certain elements due to their appearance in cartographies closest to Cervantes time, road crossings, etc. The tool used to analyze all of this has been gvSIG, an open source Geographic Information System that everybody who follow this blog know. From the location, points have been placed, so filled in the novel, such as hostelries, and  routes that can be mapped have been traced. gvSIG, used in all the world for all types of uses related to the management and mapping of geographic information, in all types of institutions, has also served to resolve the greatest literary enigma for centuries.

Cervantes launched a challenge and and it has been solved by means of gvSIG.