Andalusia in the 1833 territorial division of Spain. Each of the Andalusian provinces bears the same name as its capital: Andalusia is traditionally divided into two historical subregions: Upper Andalusia" or "Eastern Andalusia ("Andalucía Oriental"), consisting of the provinces of Almería, Granada, Jaén, and Málaga, and Lower Andalusia" or "Western Andalusia ("Andalucía Occidental"), consisting of the provinces of Cádiz, Córdoba, Huelva and Seville. Within the various autonomous communities of Spain, "comarcas" are comparable to shires (or, in some countries, counties) in the English-speaking world. Unlike in some of Spain's other autonomous communities, under the original 1981 Statute of Autonomy, the "comarcas"
Arabic language influence on the Spanish language of Burgos and La Rioja in what is now northern Spain. However, Toledo in central Spain, which became the capital of the early Kingdom of Castile during its southward expansion, is where Spanish began to appear in a written form recognizable today. The pre-existing Mozarabic dialect of this region (i.e. the Romance present during Muslim rule) is therefore likely to have also had an important formative influence on modern Spanish. The lexical influence of Arabic reached its greatest level during the Christian Reconquista, when the emerging Kingdom of Castile conquered large territories from Moorish rulers particularly in the 11th, 12th