Archivo General de Simancas

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (October 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,025 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Archivo General de Simancas]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Archivo General de Simancas}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Archivo General de Simancas" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Archivo General de Simancas

Castle of Simancas
Location	Simancas, Province of Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain
Coordinates	41°35′31″N 4°49′44″W / 41.59194°N 4.82889°W / 41.59194; -4.82889
Spanish Cultural Heritage
Type	Non-movable
Criteria	Archive
Designated	10 November 1997
Reference no.	RI-AR-0000010

The General Archive of Simancas (Spanish: Archivo General de Simancas, also known by its acronym, AGS) is an official archive located in the Castle of Simancas, in the town of Simancas, province of Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain. It was founded in 1540, making this the first official archive of the Crown of Castile.

The chronological evolution of the institution has been influenced by the history of the Crown of Castile. The moments of strength or weakness of the Spanish monarchy have been reflected in the regularity of documents' arrivals or conversely in the shortages of resources. A major milestone occurred in 1588, when Philip II of Spain issued the charter of the Archives of Simancas, a key document for understanding the management of both this archive and others in the peninsula. Also, the damage suffered during the Spanish War of Independence (the Peninsular War) had a major impact on the institution.

Currently, the AGS is a cultural institution funded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain dedicated to conservation, cataloging and research. These activities have brought about the reputation of the archive as one of the cornerstones of the Iberian Peninsula in its preservation and custody of documents.

UNESCO awarded the General Archive of Simancas with the distinction of World Heritage Site in 2017 within its category Memory of the World Programme.