The Guadalupe or Guadalupejo river is a right hand tributary of the Guadiana, in Spain. The Francization of the toponym gave its name to the Guadeloupe island in the Caribbeans.

Course

The Guadalupe has its sources in the Sierra de Villuercas near Guadalupe, giving its name to the town, and by extension to the monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe. It flows southwards into the Guadiana at the Garcia de Sola Dam, barely 1.5 km east of Valdecaballeros. There is an abandoned nuclear power plant, the Valdecaballeros Nuclear Power Plant, as well as a small dam near its mouth.

Etymology

The name is believed to be derived from the Arabic phrase, or "river of the core", because the river narrows down as it flows near to the town of Guadalupe. An alternative etymological explanation, which is commonly found on the internet, states that the name may have derived from the Arabic word for 'valley' or 'river' (wadi) and the Latin word lupus, meaning 'wolf'. Some find it unlikely that Arabic and Latin would be combined in this way, and suggest as an alternative the Arabic "Wadi-al-lub", signifying a river with black stones in its bed. Another possibility is that it comes from وادي الحب, wādī al-hubb, meaning "River of Love".