Plaza de la Moncloa

The name comes from a slip of pronunciation that ended up fixed as a place name. The neighboring estate belonged in the 17th century to a Count of Monclova, a title that traced back to a castle in the Seville countryside. In Madrid speech, Monclova kept shedding letters until it became Moncloa, and with that name the small palace, the gardens and, later, this whole northwestern entrance to the city were christened. The square took the name around 1890. In the 1930s it was called Plaza de los Mártires de Madrid, in memory of those who fell defending the city; it recovered its current name in 1980. Today it is one of Madrid’s great gateways, where the Carretera de A Coruña comes in. Around it stand the Air Force Headquarters, the Arco de la Victoria and the Faro de Moncloa, an iron lookout raised in 1992 that lifts the eye above the rooftops.