Ávila’s granite walls rise around a compact old town on Spain’s Castilian plateau, but the UNESCO site is more than a dramatic circuit of towers. The World Heritage property is formally called the Old Town of Ávila with its Extra-Muros Churches. It includes the walled city and significant religious buildings outside the gates, connecting the defensive skyline to the medieval urban and spiritual landscape around it.
The city’s fortifications form a roughly rectangular enclosure with a perimeter of 2,516 metres, according to UNESCO. The detailed World Heritage description records 87 semicircular towers and nine gates; Ávila Tourism likewise explains that one of the original 88 towers disappeared in the sixteenth century. Some sections date to around 1090, while much of the visible wall was rebuilt during the twelfth century. It is better understood as a structure with several phases than as the work of one ruler or one year.
