La Baronia de Rialb

The municipal term is located in the northeast end of the region of the Noguera, bordering with the districts of the Alt Urgell, to the east (Peramola and Coll de Nargó); the Pallars Jussà, in the northwest (Benavent de la Cuenca); and with the municipalities of Tiurana, Ponts and Artesa de Segre (Noguera) in the south and southwest.

To the right of the river Segre, it occupies the lower part of the Rialb basin. The term extends from the Segre towards the north to the heights of Cogulló de Sant Quiri (1,355 m altitude), on the border with the Pallars Jussà. The municipality is part of the natural region of the Middle Segre which is located in the Pre-Pyrenees, where it leaves the plains of Lleida and approaches the mountains and valleys of the western Catalan Pyrenees.

The surface of the term is 145km² and its altitude of 747 meters.

The term is formed by about 240 inhabitants distributed among eleven cores scattered throughout the Rialb valley; old parishes that were populated by the summits of these mountains; from the medieval high period; of defensive fortifications, farmhouses, parish churches and chapels.

The nuclei are: Gualter, La Sierra, La Torre, Politg, Pallerols, Vilaplana, Bellfort, Palau, El Puig, St. Cristóbal de la Doncel and St. Martí.

The name of Baronia, similar to that of the baronies of San Oïsme or La Vansa, comes from the fact that a good sector of its term had constituted an old jurisdictional term or barony, structured as early as the 14th century, which had as first males the Ribelles, followed by others such as the Alentorn, Rocabertí, Casaldàguila or Pinós and, as last, the Mercader and Sadurní. The determinative of Rialb, common to many other centers of the term, has it from the river Rialb or Río Alb (from Rivo Albo in Latin), that is, the white river.

Forests such as pine forests are potentially predominant, especially in the center and the northern part of the municipality. However, in the northwest and in small redoubts near the Sierra de Sant Marc there is an important mass of oak and holm oak.

The zone where the municipality is located are limestones and conglomerates that are located, preferably, to the north of the term, where the alpine orogeny and the subsequent fluvial and karstic erosion have originated the appearance of important geomorphological elements of interest, between which they emphasize cliffs, ravines and gorges.