La Marina (Cantabria)

[2] Historically, La Marina has been occupied by human societies since the Lower Paleolithic, although it maintained a low population density and a little humanized landscape until the 9th century, when it is known that there was a process of repopulation sustained in the monasteries in the Asturias of Santillana and Trasmiera; From then on, the situation of the Cantabrian coastal populations was similar to those of Biscay, where the largest abbeys of the time were concentrated along the coastal cliffs, developing population centers around them during the 10th century.

[3] The borders between Marina and Montaña are usually fixed geographically in the Sierra del Escudo de Cabuérniga, a mountain range that cuts the Cantabrian valleys, generally perpendicular to the sea, and from which the Cantabrian mountain range abandons the steep relief for a much gentler one, which descends in steps to the coast without exceeding, with some exceptions, 200 m above sea level.

[4] These lands emerged from the sea during the Quaternary era and were progressively eroded from their fractures, so that the current depressions are coincident with fault lines.

Several of them are today the beds of the great rivers of the region, such as the Besaya and the Asón, as well as shaping the bay of Santander and other coastal areas.

Its heights are generically called Sierras Litorales, which includes the mountain ranges of Udías-Novales, Camargo, Peña Cabarga, Monte Buciero and Cerredo.