The municipal project of Río Caicena´s Ecomuseum (Almedinilla-Cordoba): Heritage and local development from rural areas

Abstract

Almedinilla is a small 2500 inhabitants location situated in the Southeast of Cordoba province, in the junction formed by the limits of Cordoba, Jaen and Granada (between Priego de Córdoba and Alcalá la Real). It belongs to the network of municipalities of Cordoba´s subbetican mountais. From 1994 the town hall and many neighbourhood associations are developing the Rio Caicena´s Ecomuseum, a project of local development and territorial character. The Ecomuseum and their activities have natural and cultural heritage as its basis, and in 1997 started to manage it with several cultural places and structures such as museums, archaeological sites open to the public, pedestrian routes and other actions of protection and diffusion of heritage, among them, educational programmes, conservation interventions, cataloguing and research of heritage, and the Ecomuseum´s tourism projection.