Axarquía (Spanish pronunciation: [axaɾˈki.a]) is a comarca of Andalusia in southern Spain.
Its coastal towns make up the Costa del Sol Oriental - one of the sunniest places in mainland Spain with the average of 320 sunny days a year.
[3] The Axarquía comarca is also known as Axarquía-Costa del Sol, for it includes the Costa del Sol Oriental sector of the Costa del Sol, east of Málaga city made up of Rincón de la Victoria, Vélez-Málaga, Algarrobo, Torrox and Nerja municipal terms.
[4] The Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy defines the word "jarquía" (xarquía in old Castilian) as "district or territory located east of a great city and dependent on it" and says that it proceeds from Arabic شرقية Šarqiyya, meaning "eastern part" or " eastern."
The Royal Academy, in its spelling of the Spanish Language, 1999 edition, explains that, in old Castilian, consonant fricative phoneme [[Voiceless velar fricative|⟨x⟩]] represented the palatal [ʃ] as in English sh sound, found in words like Axarquía, Don Quixote, Mexico, Texas etc.