Pozuelo de Alarcón is a suburb of over 75,000 inhabitants near the city of Madrid, capital of Spain. It is surrounded by large Mediterranean pine-tree forests: la Casa de Campo, el Monte del Pa...more details >rdo and el Monte del Pilar. It is situated ten kilometres west (and perhaps slightly north) of the Moncloa District of Madrid.
 
Temperatures are cooler than Madrid's all year round due to its proximity to Madrid's Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains, about 30 kilometres northwest of Pozuelo.
 
Pozuelo has become a low-density residential area during recent decades as new residential developments have quickly spread over formerly agricultural lands. New elements of transport infrastructure pass through the municipality. Most notable of these are: the M-40, the second, counting outwards, of Madrid's ring motorways; and the new (summer 2007) 'Metro Ligero' (= light rail) line ML2 of the madrid metro system, which connects Pozuelo with the Aluche district in the city of Madrid. Pozuelo is also served by two stations, 'Pozuelo' and 'El Barrial-Centro Comercial Pozuelo' of the Madrid area local train system, the 'Cercanias'. Important road access is also provided by the A6 and the M503.
 
According to official statistics, Pozuelo's average income level ranks highest amongst the municipalities of the Region of Madrid. The standard of living in most of its neighbourhoods is high, although some old town-centre areas, where a growing economic immigrant population has moved in, are excluded from such wealth.
 
Pozuelo has a number of urban parks, some of them elongated and serving to separate different areas of the town. The most attractive area from an urban planning point of view is the Avenida de Europa, an urban development designed around a wide boulevard.
 
Carabanchel is a neighbourhood in the south western suburbs of Madrid, Spain.
 
The area was the scene of fierce fighting during the Spanish Civil War -especially in November 1936, during the Battle of Madrid, when Nationalist troops tried to fight their way into the area. Unacustomed to street fighting, they took heavy casualties. For the remainder of the Siege of Madrid, the front lines ran through the streets of Carabanchel, until Republican Madrid fell in March 1939.
 
It was home of Spain's most notorious prison (Carabanchel Prison), which housed many political prisoners during the Franco era. The prison was closed in 1998.
 
Carabanchel is amongst the most diverse neighborhoods in the country, with a large population of immigrants, mostly from North Africa but also some from South America and Eastern Europe, as well as native-born Spaniards.
 
 
Pozuelo de Alarcón, see Wikipedia (last visited Feb. 16, 2009).
Carabanchel, see Wikipedia (last visited Feb. 16, 2009).< hide more details