El Centenillo, Jaén: The Ideal Refuge for the Apocalypse?

The perfect town for the end of the world is in Jaén

The perfect town for the end of the world exists, and it's in Jaén. It's called El Centenillo, and whoever claims to have found it attributes to it abundant water, guaranteed fishing, deer and wild boar, two access routes controllable from natural watchtowers, a temperate climate for growing vegetables, edible wild plants, silver and lead in the subsoil, and caves to hide in when everything burns. The detail that seals its candidacy is uncomfortable: the population is so old that the place will be practically empty in a few years.

The proposal was not long in receiving a response. And not precisely the one it was looking for.

What is required of a town for the end of the world

The list is not a Sunday whim. Water for drinking, irrigation, and hygiene; big game hunting; a vegetable garden; and easily closable access routes. Water is the requirement that no one disputes: with a river or a spring, you can drink, cultivate, and clean, and it's best if conditions aren't too good, or more people will eventually arrive. Health enters the equation. A warm climate favors the vegetable garden and, according to this approach, prevents diseases in a scenario without modern medicine. Long, humid winters with scarce resources, it is argued, make one sick sooner. None of this is neutral: each criterion hides a bet on what the day after will be like.

The discards: Teruel, the north, and 1,606 meters

The obvious candidates were discarded first. Griegos, in Teruel, is at 1,606 meters altitude, and that ruled it out: at that elevation, in winter, the list of requirements ends by itself. The interior of Castellón was also ruled out for being too Mediterranean, as were any locations near Madrid or Barcelona. The north received its share of objections: the mountains of Lugo and Orense bring wolves at dawn, while the Cantabrian coast, El Bierzo, or El Jerte were mentioned as alternatives with wood, wildlife, and water. Villafranca Montes de Oca, the pre-Pyrenean Huesca with abandoned villages like Iscles, the Sierra Norte of Seville, and Ochate, in Burgos, were considered.

El Centenillo: water yes, but a drying land on the way?

The name that closed the polls was El Centenillo, in Jaén. Springs, fertile land, and tolerable temperatures, the file said. The counter-argument came quickly: the north has wood, wildlife, and abundant water, and the Jaén area is, for some objectors, a drying land prone to desertification. Another open front is where the water comes from. A well doesn't dry up in a bad summer like a spring might, as long as it's not overexploited. The issue remained unresolved, which is exactly how they usually remain.

Water, wind, and the real cost of a cold climate

Here, the climate criterion ceased to be an opinion and became an account. A temperate climate is cheaper than a cold one: with days that don't exceed five degrees and humidity close to 100%, thermal clothing isn't enough, and you have to rely on electric or gas heating. If electricity and gas continue to rise, energy poverty will hit colder areas sooner. The other aspect is older: villages were founded where there was water and where the wind blew, because air, humidity, and disease go hand in hand.

Knowing how to skin a rabbit weighs more than the map

The underlying problem wasn't geographical. The best valley is of little use if you don't know how to build with what the land provides, cultivate, care for livestock, skin a rabbit, butcher a pig, or pluck a chicken. And what can't be bought is missing: neighbors. Without several families in the settlement, the project is dead. The most brutal calculation is summarized in one sentence: 95% of the population, taken from urban environments, cars, and electricity, wouldn't last even two weeks. The key, then, is not just the place, but whether desperados and organized gangs arrive in the first few months.

Villages of four inhabitants and houses with loopholes

The most specific case appeared in Teruel: Castelvispal, a valley reached after half an hour on a poorly maintained regional road, with four registered inhabitants (INE 2020) and postal code 44412. There were children playing, open doors, and neighbors speaking Basque, a sign that someone was repopulating the place with family and friends. In León, the Maragato architecture offers another lesson: houses with an interior patio to store vehicles and windows converted into loopholes. Some have even rewritten, in a road novel style, a nocturnal encounter at a lonely service station with an old man who doesn't complain about the solitude. The map matters less than who inhabits it.

With this material, it's reasonable to expect the trickle towards empty villages to continue and for candidates to concentrate in Teruel, Soria, and Guadalajara, the least densely populated provinces. However, it's wise to be skeptical. Some argue that a global collapse would sweep across all of Europe and that there would be nowhere to hide in Spain. The perfect town, for now, remains a well-documented hypothesis.