Contribución para o estudo da rede de igrexiarios como base dunha organización territorial sustentable

Abstract

In vast areas of scattered population in the NW of Galicia, parishes are less an ecclesiastic division, than a social and geographical item. Within their limits, “igrexarios”, (that’s to say; the set of: church, graveyard, public grove, stone crosses used as landmarks, and priest house; in the common case close to a hamlet) constitute the core of them. In this area, igrexarios form a network on the cultural landscape and they represent the landmarks of its identity. Most of them were settled during the Middle Age and show traces of even earlier precedents. They often include important pieces of historical architecture, and environmental quality spaces. 

In this research we analyse 750 rural parishes and their igrexarios, which constitute a more than 6200 square kilometres area in the NW of Galicia, detecting their condition by using the SWOT system, and proposing strategies for their conservation and the renewal of their functions.