Asturias de Santillana, Santillana del Mar

Asturias de Santillana is a historical comarca whose territory in large part corresponded to the central and western part of today's autonomous community of Cantabria, as well as the extreme east of Asturias. Most of the province of Asturias belonged to the comarca of Asturias de Oviedo. Also known also as a merindad and documented since the 13th century, Asturias de Santillana comprised the western part of Cantabria including the Saja River valley and the Nansa River. Its borders used to go along the coast from the council of Ribadedeva to the municipality of El Astillero, to the shores of the Bay of Santander), which leads to the administrative division of Trasmiera. From the south it went up to the Cantabrian cordillera. All of the valleys of this comarca are perpendicular to the coast. ()