Monumento Natural Cerro de Hierro

El Cerro del Hierro is a village, a hill and natural monument located in the north of the province of Seville, at 689 metres above sea level and about 5 km south of San Nicolás del Puerto along the road to Constantina and within the Sierra Norte de Sevilla natural park.

It is a karst area of limestone rich in iron minerals, which was exploited as a mine from before the Romans until the mid-twentieth century, which is now declared a natural monument for its geological and scenic value and where hiking and climbing is practiced. The old mining town remains as a village of few inhabitants dependent on San Nicolás del Puerto.

A railway line linked the village of Cerro del Hierro with the port of Seville where the ore was shipped. The iron extracted from this mine was used to forge the grilles that limit the facades of the Royal Tobacco Factory or the structure of the Isabel II Bridge over the Guadalquivir.

This small town of few inhabitants is called the siberia of Seville, due to its cold temperatures characteristic of the mid-mountain climate with continental influences. In winter, daily frosts are common and on several occasions have exceeded -14 °C, with sporadic snowfalls. In summer, temperatures are less warm than in the rest of the province, with highs that rarely reach 40 °C, mainly due to its altitude and lush forests that surround it, as well as the constant cool wind that blows from the slopes of the mountains, which in turn causes a drop in temperatures at night. The average rainfall is around 800 mm per year, mainly in autumn and spring.

On October 1st 2003 the Junta de Andalucía declared an area of 121.65 ha as a natural monument.