In soccer, a simple chalk line decides whether a goal counts or is disallowed, and to measure it you need a video room, four referees, and the occasional crisis (I refer to the “hand of God”). But the Ventorros de Balerma line is a normal road. No more VAR. Granada on the other hand. On the other hand, Cordoba.
In the middle, a village that shares festivals, bars and schools, but not a town hall, nor a province, receipts are much lower. As with other arbitrary boundaries, sparsity becomes an issue when it comes to deciding which step an exercise has in tax collection, enumeration of neighbors, or de-escalation.
Where. The village hangs from the Campo Agrio mountain range, a stone’s throw from the Iznajar reservoir. The border is a street with the less subtle Spanish name El Limite and a fountain. Loza (in Granada) rules on one side. to another, Iznazar (in Córdoba). Malerva Jharna, transliterated as Balerma, is the name of the place. There is even an ashram, San Ysidro that was completed in 1908 with money from a neighborhood that kept promises. This is a city with a single team and two files.
Because of By historical tradition. The hamlet of Valerma was born in the state of Granada, a few meters from the border that separated it from the state of Córdoba in the 15th century. In 1833, Javier de Burgos converted the state boundaries into provincial boundaries and the isolated strip remained in place. On the other hand, the city moved: at the beginning of the 20th century it grew around some Ventores, built settlements along the road from Loja to Iznazar, and as it thickened, entered the Córdoba region.
Who does what? For example, in the CPR Iznajar Sur School Córdoba section, there are 2 bars, for example. The office belongs to the Health District of Granada and the basic area of Loza. According to the 2020 press, water from Iznazar reaches the entire village and collects garbage lojas. It’s not a bad deal, really. The zip code is 14978 on one side and 18312 on the other, and the landline starts with either 957 or 958 depending on the pavement. A child with a fever on holiday in Cordoba needs a doctor from Granada: continuing with the football analogy, this is a reaction from pavement to pavement.
Two receipts. IBI is charged by the town council where the property is located and each town council sets its rate within legal limits: from 0.4% to 1.1% in urban housing. Two identical houses separated by a road may pay different amounts. And the same thing happens with ordinances: each half lives under its ordinances.
How many are there? To date, Ventorros does not have its own registry: INE counts each half of its municipality. In 2019 there were 143 registered in Iznazar and 166 in Loja, for a total of 309. Each town council only does its own calculations, and the allocation per resident depends on those numbers. The numbers vary depending on who joins and when: 211, “less than 300” or 500 neighbors. The Córdoba section reached its population peak in 2004, with 185 registered residents. 126 in 2025: 59 were less. In any case, this is a census with a greater margin of error than a millimetric offside.
De-escalation. In May 2020, the de-escalation of captivity gave them the strangest match in history. The Granada part started at 0 and the Córdoba part at 1: a doctor’s office in one, a bar and a school in the other. Crossing the road was a dangerous violation as movement within the province was prohibited. The municipal mayor, Julian Ruiz, declared common sense, and common sense won: the entire nucleus was positioned at the most advantageous point.
He’s not the only one. Ironically, there is another similar case in the other side of the country. In Catalonia, the bi-provincial road separates Castellet i la Gornal in Barcelona from Bellevue in Tarragona. There is a house literally divided between the two. a classic.
Picture | Pepe Chocolate for Flickr
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