University of Leon

The University of León is a Spanish public university with campus in León and Ponferrada.

The germ of the university is found in 1843, when it was created the Normal School for Teachers or Masters Seminar of Public Instruction and the subaltern school of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1852, laying the foundations of Leon future university. Founded in 1979 as a splitting of the University of Oviedo, from the various schools and colleges that depend on that, more or less existed long ago in the city of Leon.

In recent years the university has signed important cooperation agreements, among which the one signed with the University of Washington, which has allowed the installation in Leon of the second European Headquarters this university to learn Spanish, with capacity for 500 students, and signed with the Xiangtan University, which has led to the establishment in the city of Confucius Institute.

The University of León has local precedents in the studies of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine taught since 1943, as well as the studies of Biological Sciences, Education, Mines, Agronomy, Philosophy and Letters, Law, dependent in turn on the University of Oviedo.

At the height of the creation date of the University of León in 1979, the development of the university campus, external to the city and located between the San Mamés neighborhood and the town of Villaobispo, also began, with the installation of Faculties and Schools Universities plus service centers, sports areas and Central Library. In turn, certain educational and research centers are kept outside the Campus in different parts of the city as well as the Rectorate (El Albeitar pavilion), services and university residences.

Rectorate

Located in the center of the city in the old Veterinary building, conveniently transformed and modernized, the government pavilion has been installed, with the rector's office and Administration services.

In addition, classrooms, exhibition halls, auditoriums and other facilities have been set up for congresses, conferences and various cultural activities. A residence for teachers completes the fate of this unique remodeled building, maintained in the city to offer the society of León as many cultural activities as the University programs, apart from those specific to Faculties and Schools.

The inauguration of the final stage of adaptation of this spacious building took place with a brilliant academic act, attended by nine rectors and the regional, provincial and local authorities, on December 18, 1989.

The cities

The cities of León and Ponferrada are located in the center of the Northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, which groups the west of the Castilla y León region together with the regions of Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and North of Portugal, bordering the Atlantic Ocean . Both cities are located on the cultural axis of the Camino de Santiago, which in its itinerary through the province of León connects singular centers such as Sahagún, Astorga and Villafranca del Bierzo.

Lion

Capital of the province, León is a prototype of a medium-sized city, very suitable for a better quality of urban life, with a municipal population of 134,000 inhabitants, although its urban area (together with the neighboring municipalities with which it participates in the same basin employment) is close to two hundred thousand inhabitants, with a domain of tertiary activities, highlighting commercial and administrative among them.

The city is endowed with a historic center (the Old Town, where the Cathedral, San Isidoro, palaces, Gaudí's Casa de Botines, the Plaza Mayor and Calle Ancha and the contrasts between the Levitical neighborhood and the popular Barrio Húmedo stand out), together to a modern center (the Ensanche or Ordoño street environment), in balance and functional complementarity between both centers. But the city is also the periphery of neighborhoods and residential estates and activities, in some cases of high symbolic and patrimonial value (San Marcos, Auditorium, MUSAC), the riverside areas of the Bernesga and Torío and the numerous nearby nuclei of the alfoz (sanctuary and the Virgen del Camino airport).

The city is relatively close to nuclei and places of high heritage value in its extensive provincial space in the Plateau (wineries-restaurant, country of the Maragatería, vegas and fields), the episcopal city of Astorga (set of the Cathedral and palace of Gaudí) and the Cantabrian Mountain (Picos de Europa, ski resorts) or in the neighboring region of Asturias (the Green Coast of the Cantabrian Sea).

Ponferrada

The city of Ponferrada is located at a distance of 110 kilometers west of León. It is smaller in size, 70,000 residents in its extensive municipality, with a medieval nucleus-bridge site initially located in the Upper part (a variegated hamlet around the Plaza de la Encina with historical buildings such as the Town Hall and the Templar Castle) and in the Lower part (the urban center of La Puebla and the new neighborhoods and residential estates).

Throughout the last century it has been characterized by a remarkable urban growth dynamic based on the balance of industrial activity ("City of energy") and tertiary activity.

Its proximity to the vineyard and orchard areas of Bierzo Bajo and the mountain valleys with a high heritage value, as well as a center close to unique coal mining activities, the exploitation of slate and the old gold extraction (Las Médulas) as well as its relative proximity of two hours to the Asturian and Galician coast.