Zuera

Zuera lies on the Gállego River north of Zaragoza, along a route connecting the Ebro basin with the Pyrenees. Its irrigated fields and river crossing helped sustain a community whose history was closely bound to the larger city. In 1338 Zuera's officials appointed representatives to conduct the council's legal cases. In 1366 King Peter IV, seeking funds for war against Castile, sold Zuera and its villages to the council of Zaragoza. The town remained under Zaragoza until 1617, and collected a toll on goods travelling along the road toward France. The recorded number of households grew from 152 in 1459 to 250 in 1610. Near the end of the eighteenth century, the scholar Jordán de Asso described extensive irrigated land by the river and beehives in the surrounding hills; wheat, barley, maize and wine formed part of the local production. Agriculture and traffic along the north–south route gave the town its livelihood.