Almería

In 1309 the city held out for more than nine months against James II of Aragon, and it remained Granada's great eastern port until the Nasrid realm tore itself apart over the throne. Boabdil's uncle El Zagal was ruling here as king when the Catholic Monarchs arrived, and in December 1489 he handed them the keys of Almería. Castilian rule was soon followed by a string of earthquakes, the worst in 1522, which left the city almost a bare site and brought down most of its Moorish buildings and the old cathedral. After the Morisco rising of 1568 the people who had taught the region to grow mulberries and weave silk were driven out, and with Barbary corsairs raiding the coast, the city of ten thousand looms dwindled to some 7,000 inhabitants.