The northeastern area of Salamanca is a little-known place where landscapes and cultures meet. Several natural and historical regions grew under the influence of different towns and cities. Among them, it is not easy to distinguish big changes in the landscape, but each one has its own unique aspect. In the west, two places stand out: Tierra de Peñaranda, with Peñaranda de Bracamonte being the capital of the region and the entire Northwest, and its neighbour Tierra de Cantalapiedra, a town with a lot of history where roads intersect with gullies. They are landscapes dominated by grain-producing countrysides and orchards in the meadows that are close to the towns. Las Villas is an intermediate region, in between La Armuña and Cantalpiedra and Peñarada, which today is especially dedicated to irrigation farming.

A part of the southwestern area belonged to the Tierra de Alba de Tormes. To the north of the provincial capital, and continuing to the border with Zamora Province, La Armuña includes areas of dry-land farming, irrigation farming, and hills with oak and pine forests. Noteworty regions are Armuña Alta and Baja.

For centuries, the western part belonged to the Tierra de Ledesma and includes oak and cork oak forests that accompany the River Tormes that unhurriedly flows between its meanders. Lastly, the southern part of the territory contains a “micro-region”: La Armuña Chica, important for its typical Salamancan pasture landscapes.

Two landscapes dominate the largest part of the territory of Salamanca’s northeast region: to the east, undulating plains, which are predominantly used for grain and irrigation farming; to the west, pastures and hollowed-out hills, where the essential economic activity is livestock raising. The northwest corner possesses the largest cork oak forest in Castilla y León, which looks down on other areas of our territory and in the south of Zamora.

The River Tormes serves as an artery for our regions’ valleys, except for one small are ato the northeast of the Northeast part, which flows into River Duero through the River Guareña. These valleys also conserve riverbank forests and delta forests – oak forests, pine forests, and mixed areas – in the middle of agricultural lands.

Among the pastures, pockets of farmland and cleared pastureland can be found, like pieces of a visible mosaic of ecosystems in the landscape.

Other places are included in these two large groups. Included in those places are the cliffs and wetlands, small springs and even dams. Environments with slightly-salty soil are also found, with their own adapted plants, and people’s domestic habitat creates different environments at the same time.