The Four Kingdoms of Andalusia (Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

: cuatro reinos de Andalucía or, in 18th century orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

, quatro reynos del Andaluzia) was a collective name designating the four kingdom

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

s of the Crown of Castile

Crown of Castile

The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...

 located in the southern Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

, south of the Sierra Morena. These kingdoms were won from Muslim rule by the Christian monarchs of Castile during the Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

; as such, all four were former taifas

Taifa

In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality, usually an emirate or petty kingdom, though there was one oligarchy, of which a number formed in the Al-Andalus after the final collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031.-Rise:The origins of...

: the Kingdom of Córdoba

Kingdom of Córdoba

The Kingdom of Córdoba was a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile from the time it was won from Muslim rule in 1236 during the Reconquista until Javier de Burgos' provincial division of Spain in 1833...

 was conquered in 1236, the Kingdom of Jaén

Kingdom of Jaén

The Kingdom of Jaén was a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile from the time it was won from Muslim rule in 1246 during the Reconquista until Javier de Burgos' provincial division of Spain in 1833...

 in 1246, the Kingdom of Seville

Kingdom of Seville

The Kingdom of Seville was a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile from the time it was won from Muslim rule in 1248 during the Reconquista until Javier de Burgos' provincial division of Spain in 1833...

 in 1248 and the Kingdom of Granada

Kingdom of Granada (Crown of Castile)

The Kingdom of Granada was a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile from the conclusion of the Reconquista in 1492 until Javier de Burgos' provincial division of Spain in 1833. This was a "kingdom" in the second sense given by the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia...

 in 1492. These four kingdoms occupied almost exactly the same territory as the present day Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 autonomous community of Andalusía

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

.

The name was used in some contexts at least since the middle of the 18th century. Some works and documents that use the designation are the Juzgados militares de España y sus Indias (1792), the Prontuario de las leyes y decretos del Rey nuestro Señor Don José Napoleon I (1810), and Breves tratados de esfera y geografía universal (1833), among many others.