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7 Rivas Vaciamadrid

7.1 City profile

The first traces of population in the geographical area of Rivas Vaciamadrid date from approximately
2 300 years ago, when a folder house was established within what is now the municipality of a
place known today as Miralrío.

The history of Rivas Vaciamadrid has been marked by its proximity to the city of Madrid. It owes its
name to Captain Guillermo Rivas who in the 11th century, colonized the area creating a Christian
enclave, by order of King Alfonso VI. Vaciamadrid may also derive its name from the Arabic
expression Manzil Mayrit, which means Parador de Mayrit, a place where travellers heading to the
city stopped to rest.

In 1845, Rivas joined Vaciamadrid, calling itself Rivas del Jarama. It marked the union of two villages
with houses scattered around large farmlands .

During the Spanish Civil War, it bore the brunt of the Battle of Jarama due to its strategic location
and was destroyed. The town was rebuilt in 1954 by the General Directorate of Devastated Regions
and was developed with numerous limitations, reaching around 500 inhabitants at the end of the
1970s.

At the beginning of the following decade, construction began of the first of the buildings to be
inhabited by cooperative members. It was then that its demographic really began to take-off and
by 2020, the population of Rivas had grown to almost 92 000. This is the steepest demographic
progression of any European city in recent decades.

Seventy per cent of the municipality comprises the South-East Regional Park, where the Jarama
and Manzanares rivers converge. The city is located less than 15 kilometres from Madrid, and it
has three stops on the Madrid metro network.

Rivas is an open city, with wide streets surrounded by green spaces, parks and groves. The
municipality is contiguous to a natural park, the Parque Regional del Sureste, a protected area of
31 552 hectares at the confluence of the Jarama and Manzanares rivers in the south-east of the
Community of Madrid. Rivas occupies 76 per cent of its municipal area. Its natural wealth boasts
fertile cereal plains, gypsum cliffs in the hills, groves and riverbanks and numerous wetlands and
lagoons. There are also archaeological and paleontological sites in the area.

7.2 Strategic approach.

Planners at Rivas Vaciamadrid are aware of the need to have a strategy to structurally address
development aimed at promoting innovation in the services provided to citizens and business, in
line with the model of a sustainable and open city. For this reason, it began its digital transformation

Compendium of survey results on integrated digital solutions for city platforms around the world 49