In 2024, Madrid was the city with the most inhabitants in Spain. In that year, more than 3.42 million people lived in the city. Barcelona was the second-largest city with 1.69 million residents.

Madrid was the largest city in Spain in 2024, with around 3.4 million inhabitants. Barcelona followed second, with nearly 1.7 million people residing there. The most populated city in the Spanish islands that year was Palma de Mallorca.

In 1500, the largest city was Paris, with an estimated 225 thousand inhabitants, almost double the population of the second-largest city, Naples. As in 1330, Venice and Milan remain the third and fourth largest cities in Western Europe, however Genoa's population almost halved from 1330 until 1500, as it was struck heavily by the bubonic plague in the mid-1300s. In lists prior to this, the largest cities were generally in Spain and Italy, however, as time progressed, the largest populations could be found more often in Italy and France. The year 1500 is around the beginning of what we now consider modern history, a time that saw the birth of many European empires and inter-continental globalization.

Population in the largest city (% of urban population) in Spain was reported at 17.12 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Spain - Population in the largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

Madrid was the most visited city destination in Spain in 2023, having welcomed nearly 10 million overnight visitors. The Catalonian capital followed second in the ranking that year, with roughly 8.2 million tourists spending at least one night in the destination. How did Madrid rank in tourist visits and accommodation? In 2022, Madrid attracted over 4.5 million domestic and 4.6 million international tourists for stays exceeding one day, despite experiencing a more than 10 percent decrease compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Furthermore, the Spanish capital has consistently ranked among the top ten European cities with the highest number of nights spent by tourists in paid accommodation, securing the 8th position that year. Which regions attracted the most international tourists? Spain's international tourism rebounded strongly from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, surpassing 100 million visitors in 2022. Catalonia led as the most visited region, attracting over 14.9 million international tourists. The United Kingdom played a pivotal role as the primary source of international tourists, contributing over 15 million travelers, followed by France with around 10 million visitors.

In 2022, Madrid remains the city with most Twitter users in Spain, counting up to around 588.47 thousand and 91.53 thousand active users. It is followed by Catalan capital Barcelona with 372.38 thousand, with a difference of about 215 thousand between each other. Despite counting up to 4.2 million users, only 564.6 thousand accounts are considered active Twitter users in the country according to the source.

Censo de Población: Population aged 16 and over by year of arrival in Spain, year of arrival in the municipality, sex, country of birth (Spain/foreign) and relationship with the activity (provincial capitals and main cities). Annual. Municipalities.

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

In 2022, Madrid topped the ranking of the Spanish cities with the highest number of Facebook profiles, with approximately 2.2 million. Barcelona and Valencia ranked second and third with 1.2 million and 530.7 thousand users, respectively. Facebook has maintained a relatively stable number of users in the country since 2019, although declining to 21.1 million in 2022.

In 2024, approximately 22.81 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the fifth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.51 million inhabitants.

Brazil's cities

Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 12.4 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.8 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller, but well known cities such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 85 percent of inhabitants living in cities.

Mexico City

Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks fifth in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2021, the city registered a crime incidence of 45,336 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 32 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

It is estimated that the cities of Cordova (modern-day Córdoba) and Palermo were the largest cities in Europe in 1050, and had between fifteen and twenty times the population of most other entries in this graph, Despite this the cities of Cordova (the capital city of the Umayyad caliphate, who controlled much of the Iberian peninsula from the seventh to eleventh centuries), and Palermo (another Arab-controlled capital in Southern Europe) were still the only cities in Western Europe with a population over one hundred thousand people, closely followed by Seville. It is also noteworthy to point out that the five largest cities on this list were importing trading cities, in modern day Spain or Italy, although the largest cities become more northern and western European in later lists (1200, 1330, 1500, 1650 and 1800). In 1050, todays largest Western European cities, London and Paris, had just twenty-five and twenty thousand inhabitants respectively.

The period of European history (and much of world history) between 500 and 1500 is today known as the 'Dark Ages'. Although the term 'Dark Ages' was originally applied to the lack of literature and arts, it has since been applied to the lack or scarcity of recorded information from this time. Because of these limitations, much information about this time is still being debated today.

Graph and download economic data for Geographical Outreach: Number of Branches in 3 Largest Cities, Excluding Headquarters, for Credit Unions and Financial Cooperatives for Spain (ESPFCBODULNUM) from 2004 to 2015 about branches, credit unions, Spain, financial, and depository institutions.

Censo de Población: Population by year of arrival in Spain, year of arrival in the Autonomous Community, sex and nationality (main countries). Annual. Autonomous Communities and Cities.

Table of INEBase Population by year of arrival in Spain, year of arrival in the municipality, sex, age (large groups) and country of birth (Spain/foreign) (Provincial capitals and main cities). Annual. Municipalities. Censo de Población

This horizontal bar chart displays GDP (current US$) by capital city using the aggregation sum and is filtered where the country is Spain. The data is about countries per year.

Spain's Condominiums and Apartments Market is segmented by City (Madrid, Catalonia, Valencia, Barcelona, Malaga, and Other Cities). The report offers market size and forecasts in value (USD billion) for all the above segments.

Censo de Población: Population by previous residence, sex, age (big groups) and nationality (Spanish/foreign) (Provincial capitals and main cities). Annual. Municipalities.

The top city for startups in Spain in 2024 was Barcelona, whose score amounted to 21.98. The country's capital, Madrid, followed second, with a total score of 15.45 points.

The database is one of the results of the project "Metropolitan Governance in Spain: Institutionalization and Models" (METROGOV, 2020-23), funded by the National R&D Plan 2019 of the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-106931GA-I00). Directed by Professor Tomàs, the project wants to understand the building and definition of models of metropolitan governance in Spain. There is no comprehensive work based on a common methodology that address this topic, this is why the METROGOV project seeks to cover this gap in the literature and the research.

The first specific goal of the project was to create a database of metropolitan institutions in Spain, including hard forms like metropolitan governments, metropolitan sectorial agencies and consortiums as well as soft forms as metropolitan strategic plans. The database provides an updated and rigorous portrait of the institutional thickness of urban agglomerations, gathering up to 384 metropolitan cooperation instruments in the Spanish functional areas. In other words, it is a picture of the institutional reality of Spanish urban agglomerations. This database provides precious information about the model of metropolitan governance, the municipalities involved and the sectors with most and less institutionalization.

As in Spain there is not an official or statistical definition of metropolitan areas, the project departed from the concept of Functional Urban Areas (FUA), considered as “densely inhabited city and a less densely populated commuting zone whose labour market is highly integrated with the city” (Eurostat). According to this definition, the commuting zone contains the surrounding travel-to-work areas of a city where at least 15 % of employed residents are working in a city. In the case of Spain, we find 45 big FUA, where the central city has more than 100.000 inhabitants. The database was structured considering these 45 Spanish FUAs, and it was necessary that at least 3 municipalities participated in the metropolitan cooperation tools.

In the grid, you will find the 384 instruments of metropolitan cooperation following different criteria. First of all, the models of metropolitan governance, from hard to soft: metropolitan government, metropolitan sectoral agency, “mancomunidad”, consortium, public or public-private company, territorial plan, sectoral plan, comarca, association of municipalities, strategic plan, European project, working group. Each instrument is also classified according to the subject of cooperation: transport, waste, water, housing, urbanism, etc. Other complementary information is added, such as: the year of creation; number and names of municipalities that are part of the entity; percentage of territory covered by this tool, etc.

A book has been recently published with the results of the project: Tomàs, M. (2023) (ed.). Metrópolis sin gobierno. La anomalía española en Europa. València: Tirant lo Blanch.

Spain Office Real Estate Market Report is Segmented by Key Cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Other Cities). The Report Offers Market Size and Forecasts in Value (USD) for all the Above Segments.