Mequinenza is located where the ancient Iberian city of Octogesa once stood, that played an important role in the battle of Ilerda that took place in June 49 BC between the forces of Julius Caesar and the Spanish army of Pompey Magnus.

Since 1983 and as part of the research programs of the Museum of Zaragoza and the collaboration with the City Council of Mequinenza three main sites have been excavated by archeologists: Los Castellets, Barranco de la Mina Vallfera and Riols I.

This facilitates the conquest of the whole of the Bajo Cinca and the Segriá regions, and as a result of this figure "Mequinenza" in the Arc de Triomphe of Paris was one of the great victories of Napoleon.

Once again under the rule of the Bourbons, the strategic castle of Mequinenza and its surroundings were transformed and conditioned again to adapt to new forms of warfare with artillery and infantry equipped with rifles.

In the enlightened environment of the mid-18th century in Spain, José Ferrer Beltrán was born in Mequinenza, a priest who stood out for his role as a musician as an organist for the cathedrals of Lérida, Pamplona and Oviedo.

In 1802, Charles IV granted consent for the construction in Mequinenza of a new parish church, designed by the architect José de Yarza in the Neo-Renaissance style.

On 2 June, French engineers had already started digging trenches and located artillery pieces to attack the castle while the infantry stormed the town at the same time.

The Spanish troops at that time were 500 soldiers of various origins: Navarrese-Aragonese, Catalans, smugglers, Miquelets, adventurers and a regiment commanded by an Englishman named Doyle who held the rank of Commissar General of Aragon.

As a consequence of these military contests, the name "Mequinenza" appears on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as one of the great Napoleonic victories in Spain.

[citation needed] The British military man and artist Edward Hawke Locker describes the population in 1824 in his work "Views from Spain" after one of his trips around Spain: The Segre which rises in the Pyrenees at the distance of 120 miles, and traverses some of the richest plains of Cataluña, falls into the Ebro, beneath the walls of Mequinenza, which stands on the confluence of these two rivers, and of the Cinca, which also becomes tributary to the Ebro, near the same spot.

In 1841, the adventurer and businessman Enrico Misley promoted the Ebro Steamer Company with the aim of establishing a transportation service between Zaragoza and Barcelona divided into sections, using coal from the Mequinenza mines as fuel for Steamships.

Misley's company ended up failing for political and economic reasons, although it meant a starting point in the concession and exploitation of the first mining demarcations of the Mequinenza coal basin.

[3] In the course of the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1939, Mequinenza and its municipal area were the scenes of bloody combats of the Battle of the Ebro, between June and November 1938.

The growth was focused on Mequinenza since it was the natural epicenter of the basin although it also grew nearby towns such as La Granja d'Escarp, Torrente de Cinca or Fayón.

Mequinenza became a mining town where Aragonese miners arrived (from Andorra, Utrillas, Montalbán, Alcorisa or Aliaga) and also from Asturias, Andalusia, Murcia and Galicia.

Constructed of local hardwood, the Llauts used the current of the river to make the journey south, and when they had to return to Mequinenza they could use wind extending the square sails that the skipper maneuvered.

Flix Electrochemical Society (SEQF), which had mining concessions in Mequinenza, decided in 1920 to suppress the human force and change it for animal traction.

In 2010, MIBSA (Minera del Bajo Segre), which shared coal mining operations on the border between the province of Lleida and Mequinenza, closed.

The staff of the mining company undertook various mobilizations actively participating in the Black March towards Madrid, remembering with pride "that since 1880 they had fed the factories of the industrial belt of Barcelona".

After months of waiting in 2014, Carbonífera del Ebro announced that the situation was unsustainable and was closing its doors under the non-competitive Mine Closure Plan of the Ministry of Industry.

Few forts will have a better location than this, contemplating a vast and impressive landscape, almost geological, on the confluence of the Ebro, Segre and Cinca rivers and their surrounding lands.

After several changes of owner, in 1184 the castle and the town of Mequinenza, the Marquis of Aitona, Ramón Guillén de Moncada, and later to the Dukes of Medinaceli (Duchess of Alba) are granted.

During the period 1808–1814 (War of Independence) the castle endured three attacks by Napoleón, but finally in 1810 was conquered by the troops of Marshal Suchet, and belonged until 1814 to the French government.

After several changes of owner, in 1184 the castle and the town of Mequinenza, the Marquis of Aitona, Ramón Guillén de Moncada, and later to the Dukes of Medinaceli (Duchess of Alba) are granted.

He also translated into Catalan many Spanish, French, and English works of authors such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Alexandre Dumas, père, Jules Verne, and Boris Vian.

[citation needed] Moncada blends the real and the fantastic in the manner of Gabriel García Márquez, and his episodic style may remind some readers of the Colombian novelist's treatment of events in the town of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Such a comparison is not mere reviewers' hyperbole: this is a rich, humorous and moving novel, sensitively translated into English, which should herald a glittering future for its author.

[4] The novel Camí de Sirga (The towpath) (1988) tells the story of a town situated at the confluence of two great rivers, the Ebro and the Segre, through the memories of its inhabitants.

[citation needed] The town is most well known amongst northern European fishermen for the large but elusive Wels catfish (Silurus glanis), which are found in the vast Mequinenza reservoir.

We can find hundreds of meters wide water with numerous fluvial islands and riverside forests, large masses of reed, pebble beaches, ponds and galleries.