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Arriate AREA: 8,30 km² ALTITUDE ABOVE SEA LEVEL: 596 metres AVERAGE ANNUAL RAINFALL: 718 l/m² AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE: 15’4 ºC POPULATION, CENSUS 1994: 3,290 
Arriate looks out to the highlands from the slopes of the Guadalcobacín (Guadiaro tributary), in the Ronda depression. This river, which borders the municipality on the north and west, encloses some landscapes of great beauty when the vegetation on the banks close together forming real "gallery-woods". Close to this spot there are fertile plots which reach the boundaries of the town, adding fruit trees and vegetables to the landscape of olive trees and cereals. Arriate, also claims a privileged surrounding, and although it is on the outside of the municipality, acts as a background in which there are the Sierras de Las Cumbres (911 m.) and Salinas (954 m.) mostly covered in holm-oak woods, and the Dehesa de Parchite. In spite of the scarcity of facts known about the history of Arriate, judging by the caves in the rocks on the banks of the river, it is possible that man’s presence in these lands comes from very remote times. Its geographical situation in an area of soft topography and water, as well as the possibilities of hunting in the woods and nearby sierras, convert it into a very favourable ecological medium for the first settlement of hunters and later farmers. Arriate, because of the closeness to Ronda, must have been a place of frequent skirmishes and confrontations in order to obtain the coveted city of Acinipo first and Ronda after, as demonstrated in the Battle of Arriate (Arriate Ambush) which was liberated in 1407 between the Christian and Muslim armies, when Hernando Arias’ troops attacked the Moors in the Guadalcobacín river. On the 14th of February in 1630, the inhabitants of Arriate bought their independence in order to be segregated from Ronda. It was then that it adopted its acual name of Arriate, possibly taking the name from an estate which had existed since the Arab times.
Very close to Ronda, the town offers the visitor the image of one of the typical enclaves of the highland's interior depression, with straight streets and white two-storey houses with back yards.
The local handicraft is based on forging, copper relief work, the making of country leather wine bottles and woodwork
The authoctonous dishes are rabbit with garlic, spicy sausage with lard and pork products. In the winter there is the local stew, and breadcrumbs fried with garlic. At Lent, there are hard boiled eggs, sweet lemons, bread in a doughnut form, a type of puréed cold soup or sauce, and Easter cakes. The bakery is based on unsieved brown bread and wine rusk.
The local festivities are on the 29th of June with the so called Corpus de Arriate, a privilege given by the pope Clemente XIV in 1769 so that the women could do the processions of the Santisimo any time that the men were working in the fields of the Seville countryside. Other celebrations include the Dia de la Vieja (the old woman's day), which consists of going into the countryside to eat and drink the typical dishes; the pilgrimage of the May Cross to the chapel of the Frontones and after the mass, going to the Pinos de Marqués. An ancient tradition is the custom of the "auroreros", which are members of the Brotherhood of the Aurora, who go into the streets of the town at sunrise on almost every Sunday, singing to the sound of guitars, bells and other instruments. Easter plays the star role for its devotion and seriousnes of its processions of the brotherhoods of the Cristo de la Salud , Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, the Virgen de los Dolores and the Aurora.
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