Redovan

Cities - Villages

Founded by the mythical Arab caudillo Raduan belonged to the Jewish family of Jaime de Santángel. Soon it was populated by Arabs and Christians who managed to become independent of the neighboring Orihuela in the early date of century XVI. Nowadays it is an average town, with 5,150 inhabitants, to which the Segura irrigates thanks to the channel of Escorratel. At the foot of the Sierra de Segura, alone in the plain that surrounds it and populated by prickly pears as well as by scrub thin, is a town of rich agriculture of high technology dedicated to the hortofruticultura although in time it was famous his production of hemp and cotton. From this production has resulted an incipient artisan industrialization that produces alpargatas and ceramics. The population of Redován is maintained in a growing rhythm and at present it is between the seven and eight thousand inhabitants. -Redovan’s name is purely Arab and refers to the knight or family who owned the town, which in the beginning was nothing else, in the whole of its term, than a farm or estate of the vast territory that then depended on Orihuela. Some want to derive them from Farax Ben Redvan or Reduan, general of the Moorish King of Granada, who invaded and sacked Guardamar in 1331, and encamped in the foothills of our sierra, staying in the place which, for this reason, they say took then name Of his name. But this does not seem to be the truest truth, since before 1331, in the Book of Repartimientos of Orihuela it is mentioned already with the name of “Aben-Redvan”, that means: “Of the children of Redován”; Which clearly alludes to an owner of the same name as the General, but long before him.