Añana is the name of a valley, town and municipality located in the province of Álava, in the Basque Country. Añana is the capital town of the Cuadrilla of Añana administrative division of the province. It is comprised of two villages, Atiaga and Gesaltza Añana. The town is renowned for its old salt flats, which were formed beginning in the Triassic Period.^[1] Over 5,000 pans have been built since the Roman times, with exportation of its salt a major business. Now, the area has focused on spa tourism to bring needed income to the area.^[2]

According to theory proposed by linguist Julio Caro Baroja, the Basque toponyms with the -ana suffix designate former Roman villas with certain urban features. According to said theory the pattern of denomination of said villas would be formed by the name of the original owner plus the suffix -anus, which indicates possession; in this case -ana would be the inflected accusative feminine form. Añana is cited by Baroja as an example of these type of toponyms. According to Baroja Aña- would come from the very well known Latin name Annius, and thus the original name of the village might have been Anniana.^[3]

Añana appears mentioned for the first time in written form on a document from 978 under the name Annana and once again later in 984 as Agnana. It would seem the salt pans were already under exploitation by this time, which would later give the main village the name of Salinas de Añana ("Salt pans of Añana"). Even though the municipality appears under the name of simply Añana in the census of 1842, from the following census and until 1997 the municipality was named Salinas de Añana. In 1997 the name Añana was recovered for the municipality, but Salinas de Añana remained as a name of the main village, Atiega being the name of a minor village located nearby. Since 1997 the village has the name of Salinas de Añana in Spanish and Añana Gesaltza in Basque, both being official.

The valley of Añana has been populated since prehistoric times. Based on archeological remains found across the valley, it is believed it was already populated during the Copper Age^[4] Some historians believe the city of Salionica, mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century as a "city of the Autrigones" was located in the Añana valley. Another known reference comes from the documents that state that the repopulation of Salaria, which is believed to be an earlier name of the valley, occured under the orders of Cerferino, Duke of Cantabria in the year 206.^[4] The Romanization of the valley took place between the AD 1st and 4th centuries. It is known that by the year 822 the salt pans were already under exploitation.

In the year 855 Umayyad