Pola de Somiedo is one of fifteen parishes (administrative divisions) in Somiedo, a municipality within the province and autonomous community of Asturias, in northern Spain with category village ("villa" in Spanish),It is situated at an elevation of 700 m (2,300 ft) above sea level.
In 1786 Somiedo Pola was visited by the English writer and researcher Joseph Townsend .
In his book Journey through Spain in the time of Charles III (1786-1787), the writer narrates the following:Surrounded by about eighty acres of wet meadows, enclosed in limestone rocks of extraordinary height and settled on a small eminence is La Pola de Somiedo, a village of twenty houses.
The village, the meadows, the creek, the high and bare mountains are almost perpendicular to its forested hillsides, with goats jumping from rock to rock and cattle grazing peacefully below combine to form a magnificent whole.In 1269 by royal decision.
Alfonso X promoted and encouraged the creation of "pueblas" or "polas" (small villages in Spanish) and one of them was the Somiedo.