Vall Salina and the Salt Mountain

The Vall Salina of Cardona, bearer of the precious wealth of the salt that has been exploited since Neolithic times, and of the potash discovered by the engineer Emilio Viader in early 1900, is the reason Cardona exists. In 2003, the Salt Mountain Cultural Park was opened nearby in order to display its value and project the Salt Mountain as “a mountain of pure salt that keeps growing the more it is extracted” (Aulus Gel·li, citing Cató, 2nd century AD).

A unique geological phenomenon.

The Vall Salina of Cardona is a depression of the land in the form of an elongated ellipse of 1,800 m long by 600 wide having a surface area of 100 ha. Its natural features have earned it to be included into the Plan for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty of Catalonia. The outcrops of salt are located within the depression and was thus formerly known as the Salí (salt warehouse), and is today known as the Vall Salina (salt valley).