Castilla–La Mancha, or Castile La Mancha, is an autonomous community of Spain. Comprised by the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo, it was created in 1982, it is bordered by Castile and León, Aragon, Murcia and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's regions. Albacete is the largest and most populous city; the Government headquarters are in Toledo and the High Court headquarters are in Albacete. Castilla–La Mancha was grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile, but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of autonomous communities, it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces. Distinct from the former New Castile, Castilla–La Mancha added the province of Albacete, part of Murcia, it is in this region where the story of the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is situated, due to which La Mancha is internationally well-known. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau, it remains a symbol of Spanish culture with its vineyards, mushrooms, olive plantations, Manchego cheese, Don Quixote.

The origins of Castilla–La Mancha lay in the Muslim period between the 8th and 14th century. Castilla–La Mancha was the region of many historical battles between Christian crusaders and Muslim forces during the period from 1000 to the 13th century, it was the region where the Crown of Castile and Aragon were unified in 1492 under Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand. Castilla–La Mancha is the successor to New Castile, which in turn traces back to the Muslim Taifa of Toledo, one of the taifas of Al Andalus. Alfonso VI conquered the region from the Muslims, taking Toledo in 1085; the Reconquista took Cuenca in 1177. Other provinces to the south—the Campo de Calatrava, the Valle de Alcudia, the Alfoz de Alcaraz —were consolidated during the reign of Alfonso VIII, whose conquests were completed by the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; that victory assured Castilian domination of the region and hastened the decline of the Almohad Dynasty. From the time of the Reconquista, Castilla–La Mancha formed part of the Kingdom of Castile.

Four centuries in 1605, Cervantes' Don Quixote gave the world an indelible picture of La Mancha. In 1785, the territorial organization by the reformer Floridablanca divided the region into the provinces of Cuenca, Madrid, La Mancha, Toledo. Albacete, Almansa, Hellín and Yeste, became part of Murcia. In 1833 Javier de Burgos modified the provincial borders. Albacete, in turn incorporated parts of the territories of the old provinces of Cuenca and Murcia. Albacete was administered as part of the Region of Murcia until the 1978 configuration of autonomous regions. Nonetheless, during the First Spanish Republic, Albacete was one of the signatories to the Pacto Federal Castellano and in 1924 its deputation favored the formation of a "Comunidad Manchega" that would have recognized La Mancha as a region; the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha dates from 15 November 1978 as one of the many autonomous regions defined by the Spanish central government.. The new, hyphenated name constituted an effort to bridge two distinct regionalisms: that of the larger Castilla and that of the smaller onetime province of La Mancha.

The Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha was approved August 10, 1982 and took effect August 17, 1982. Castilla–La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities; the following category includes: Albacete Ciudad Real Cuenca Guadalajara ToledoAccording to the official data of the INE, Castilla–La Mancha consists of 919 municipalities, which amount to 11.3 percent of all the municipalities in Spain. 496 of these have less than 500 inhabitants, 231 have between 501 and 2,000 inhabitants, 157 between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, only 35 have more than 10,000 inhabitants. The municipalities in the north are small and numerous, while in the south they are larger and fewer; this reflects different histories of. The 25 most populous municipalities of Castilla–La Mancha as at 2017, according to the INE, are: Although the Statute of Autonomy allows for comarcas of political/juridical significance, this has never been followed through at the level of the entire region, there are no comarcas in Castilla–La Mancha with political or juridical functions.

Individual provinces of Castilla–La Mancha have performed comarcalizations for administrative and touristic purposes. Many Castellano-Manchegan comarcas important traditional significance, with some figuring in history well beyond their respective provinces. Comarcas of Albacete:Campos de Hellín Llanos de Albacete La Mancha del Júcar-Centro Manchuela albaceteña Monte Ibérico–Corredor de Almansa Sierra de Alcaraz y Campo de Montiel Sierra del Segura Comarcas of Ciudad Real:Alcudia Campo de Calatrava Mancha Montes Montiel Sierra Morena Comarcas of Cuenca:La Alcarria conquense La Mancha de Cuenca Manchuela conquense Serranía Alta Serranía Media-C

John Arthur Simpson was an Anglican priest. Simpson was born in Cardiff, 7 June 1933, to Arthur Simpson, a draper, Mary Esther Simpson, who worked for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, he was the youngest of three children. Simpson attended Cathays High School in Cardiff. After National Service, where he learned Russian at Cambridge and worked as an interpreter in East Berlin, he went on to study Modern History at Keble College, graduating in 1958. Simpson trained for the priesthood at Clifton Theological College and was ordained in 1958. After curacies in Leyton and Orpington he was a tutor at Oak Hill Theological College from 1962 to 1972, he was Vicar of Ridge, Hertfordshire until 1981 when he began his long association with the Diocese of Canterbury. From 1981 to 1986 he was Archdeacon of Canterbury. In 1986 he was installed as the Dean of Canterbury, heading the large chapter and staff of the cathedral until his retirement in 2000. After retirement he lived in Folkestone. In December 2000 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for "services to the Church of England".

He died at home in Folkestone on 24 April 2019

Anthony Brian Watts FRS is a British marine geologist and geophysicist and Professor of Marine Geology and Geophysics in the Department of Earth Sciences, at the University of Oxford. Watts was born in Essex and educated at Sidcot School, a Quaker school in Somerset, University College, London where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Physics in 1967, he earned a PhD in Marine Geophysics from University of Durham in 1970 supervised by Professor Martin H. P. Bott and a Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford in 2003. Watts has taught at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the University of Oxford and has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals and a book on Isostasy and Flexure of the Lithosphere. According to Watts: Watts has received a number of awards including the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London, the George P. Woollard Award of the Geological Society of America and the Arthur Holmes Medal of the European Geosciences Union.

Watts was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014, his nomination reads: Watts is an Honorary Member of the European Geosciences Union and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America and an elected Member of the Academia Europaea. He is the 2015 Harold Jeffreys Lecturer of the Royal Astronomical Society