The University and the historic center of Alcalá de Henares were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on December 2, 1998. This recognized its unique legacy as the world's first planned university city and as a Civitas Dei, two models that were replicated in the Americas and Europe. Its status as a sanctuary of the Spanish language and literature was also recognized, with Cervantes, its most universally recognized son, as an icon.
The Golden Age culminated more than a millennium of Alcalá's journey along the paths of history, which began in the first century AD with its consolidation as a Roman municipium. Based on a privileged geostrategic location, it became a key city in central Spain during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. As a medieval borough where the three religions coexisted, it became a town with charters, a stronghold under the protection of the archbishops of Toledo, and the seat of General Studies.
And already in the Modern Age, it became an emblem of thought and the arts in Imperial Spain, as the triple City of Knowledge, of God, and of Letters. Many other "Alcalás" emerged and overlapped in the contemporary world: the barracks city, the archives city, the aviation city, the industrial city... And all of them have left traces in the landscape and memory, shaping the Alcalá de Henares of the present: historical and traditional, modern and dynamic.
A highly representative fragment of this urban silhouette is the one that forms part of the intaglio stamp dedicated to it by Correos: the Plaza de Cervantes in the heart of Alcalá de Henares; an ancient city "stretched out in the sun," as Unamuno imagined it, and embraced by "the clear Henares," as Lope de Vega sang.
