6 PUEBLOS de la SERRANÍA de CUENCA donde AÚN Resisten MENOS de 50 VECINOS

In the Serranía de Cuenca mountains, there are still entire municipalities with fewer residents than an apartment building in any city. These are villages with town halls, postal codes, history, heritage, and official censuses, but their figures reveal a harsh reality: in 2024, some barely reached 19, 20, or 25 inhabitants. And this depopulation process is not a thing of the past. It continues to happen now, year after year, silently. In this documentary, we visit six villages in the Serranía de Cuenca where fewer than 50 residents still remain: Yémeda, Valsalobre, Algarra, Cueva del Hierro, Castillejo-Sierra, and Fresneda de la Sierra. Each one showcases a different facet of inland Spain: municipalities with a history of thermal springs, old saltworks, medieval castles, iron mines, extreme altitudes, harsh winters, and a daily life marked by the distance from basic services. Yémeda, with only 19 registered residents, preserves the memory of an old spa on the banks of the Guadazaón River. Valsalobre, at over 1,200 meters above sea level, has barely 20 inhabitants in an environment where snow and isolation are part of daily life. Algarra, with 25 residents, holds the remains of a medieval castle that recalls when this area was a border town between Castile and Aragon. Cueva del Hierro, also with 25 inhabitants, bears in its very name the mining history that gave the town its identity. Castillejo-Sierra partially bucks the trend, rising from 28 to 33 residents between 2019 and 2024. And Fresneda de la Sierra, with 41 inhabitants, shows how quickly a village can cross the symbolic threshold of 50 residents. This video doesn't portray abandoned villages as romantic postcards. It speaks of living municipalities, but at risk. Places where every resident matters, where a closed house changes the entire street, where losing three people in five years can mean losing more than 10% of the population. In a city, these figures would go unnoticed. In these villages, they can decide whether a community continues to function or enters a phase of almost irreversible depopulation. The Serranía de Cuenca is part of that inland Spain where the beauty of the landscape alone does not compensate for the lack of services, employment, transportation, schools, shops, or nearby medical care. Forests, ravines, rivers, castles, mines, and mountain villages coexist with an uncomfortable question: what does it take for someone to stay, return, or decide to start a real life there? Which of these six municipalities do you think has the best chance of surviving the next ten years: Yémeda, Valsalobre, Algarra, Cueva del Hierro, Castillejo-Sierra, or Fresneda de la Sierra? Write your answer in the comments. Subscribe to discover more documentary stories about rural depopulation in Spain, small towns, rural demographics, forgotten municipalities, endangered heritage, and places where every inhabitant makes a difference. #RuralDepopulationSpain #SerraníaDeCuenca #Cuenca #VillagesOfSpain #Depopulation