Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida

Augusta Emerita was founded in 25 BCE for veterans of Rome's Spanish campaigns and rose to be the capital of Lusitania. Modern Mérida in Extremadura keeps an astonishing share of it: a theatre still staging performances, an amphitheatre, the traces of a vast circus, a long Roman bridge across the Guadiana and a sophisticated water-supply network. Few places show a provincial Roman capital so completely. UNESCO inscribed the ensemble in 1993.