Horta de Sant Joan - Els Ports.

Alfonso the Chaste, in 1165, awarded the first letter of population, but it wasn't ruled and the year 1174 the king gave up to the Templars, who organized and started again the repopulation with a new charter, granted by the year 1192. Horta was part of the Ribera District until 1236 when it became autonomous.

Horta was one of the villages of the Ebro that,  in 1280, paid more contributions in concep of tenths, tax of the Crusades, and had, according to the inventories, an important livestock. Jaume I (1208-1276) was in the Horta castle and gave evidence in his Book of feits. In 1317. Suppressed the order of the Temple, its assets were taken over by the military order of the Hospitallers and Horta came under the jurisdiction of Castile, until the order was extinct in 1851.

Until 1919 the village was not officially called Horta de Sant Joan. The oldest name is known, almost always used since medieval times to practically well into the eighteenth century, is "Orta".
 

During the twentieth century and during the  Civil War had as a more Out-standing thing the proximity of the Battle of the Ebro, but Horta's name has been known worldwide for the canvases painted by Picasso And  because they were initiators of the cubism.

Horta de San Juan is one of the entries in the Els Ports Natural Park. Located between Catalonia, Valencia and Aragon, this limestone massif, from relief steep and abrupt, has been humanized since prehistoric times. However, the territory of the "Ports" is presented today as a natural area untamed and full of wildlife.

The "Ports" are a refuge for many endangered species of flora and fauna, and in  special the populations of beech, that here have the most southern enclave of the Catalan Countries. The geological formations draw a acharacteristic landscape unique in Catalonia, the importance of these natural values ​​and the need to preserve it, motived the catalan government to create the Els Ports Natural Park and the Partial Reserve of the "Fagedes dels Ports".