Download map of the Sierra Mágina Natural Park (pdf)

The Natural Park of Sierra Mágina is placed in the South of the province of Jaén, in the geological border that the Baetica Chain (Cordillera Bética) and the Guadalquivir Valley establish. Here you can find the highest massif in this province (the Mágina peak, 2.167 metres high) and the third higher one in Andalucía , after Sierra Nevada and Sierra de la Sagra.

The Natural Park of Sierra Mágina  is built by several mountain ranges. All this area ( especially the zone which was declared “Protected area” ) has a very rough terrain with hard slopes which ,sometimes, are changed into vertical rock faces of lime rock and they are suitable places for the refuge and life of species which have exceptional importance such as birds of prey or the wild goat. In this way, its characteristics species have turned this place into an ideal habitat for many floral species ( more than 1.200 different ones have been catalogued), some of which are exclusive of this zone such as the “Jurinea frontqueri”. 

This difficult orography has rebounded directly on the good conservation of its ecosystems, due to the high degree of inaccessibility that confers it. Both factors, orography and ecosystem, relief and vegetation, give Sierra Mágina a high ecological and landscape value , value recognized deservedly by the Junta de Andalucía that declared it as a Natural Park the 18 of July 1.989 .

This complicated mountainous formation has supposed the isolation of the district, favoring its conservation and conditioning the way of its people's life so that until recent times due to the construction of inadequate accesses the productive sector has not been diversified basing its economy exclusively on the primary sector,takind advance of all the resources that the environment has offered people. Some of the most relevant ones are:

*The esparto, which has been bounded to the industry of the oil and the elaboration of apparels for the mules and donkeys mainly, even existent in these places"

*The snow was one of the main resources to obtain ice some time ago, and for that reason it was accumulated in some peculiar constructions denominated "neveros” which were built and used to conservate the snow in summer.

*The "carboneo" took advantage of the existent forest masses in the area and by means of this practice people prepared some wood of this area to be used in winter. Coal is created by means of this process.

*The elaboration of mill stones for the extraction of oil in the mills or the production of lime in singular "caleras" (places where this product was prepare for its use) are examples of very bound activities to the area and this one,  the same as the previous ones, is disappeared nowadays"

*The cattle breeding has been mainly dedicated to the upbringing of cattle and goats. This area is one of the scarce places where two autochthonous races of livestock still exist: the "ojinegra" (black-eyed) sheep and the Andalusian white goat.

*The agriculture is almost monopolized by the olive grove at this moment but until recent times it has been very bound to an economy of subsistence, so you can find wide areas dedicated to the growing of fruit trees and vegetables in irrigable areas of this zone, taking advantage of a complex net of canals, legacy of the andalusí period.