Spain Map with Provinces

Spain has 50 provinces, which form the second administrative level beneath the 17 autonomous communities. The framework comes from the division of 1833 organized by Javier de Burgos, which set out 49 provinces. The Canary Islands were separated into Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1927, bringing the total to 50, and that count has not changed since. The map on this page has 52 shapes because it also includes Ceuta and Melilla, the two autonomous cities on the North African coast that belong to no province. Castile and León has the most provinces of any community, with nine.

Badajoz is the largest Spanish province by area at 21,766 km² (8,404 sq mi), covering the southern half of Extremadura along the Portuguese border, according to INE. Cáceres, the other Extremaduran province, ranks second at 19,868 km² (7,671 sq mi), so the two of them together take up roughly 8 percent of Spain. Gipuzkoa is the smallest province at 1,980 km² (764 sq mi), about eleven times smaller than Badajoz. Badajoz is also larger than the whole of Slovenia, yet it had fewer than 700,000 residents on 1 January 2024 (INE), less than a tenth of the population of Madrid province.

Madrid is the most populated province in Spain, with about 7.0 million residents (INE, 1 January 2024). Its boundaries match those of the Community of Madrid exactly, and it contains Madrid, the national capital. Barcelona province ranks second and Valencia third, followed by Alicante, Seville and Málaga. Soria is the least populated province, with about 90,000 residents on the same date. Population is concentrated in the Madrid area, along the Mediterranean coast and in the two archipelagos, while many interior provinces such as Soria, Teruel and Zamora have far fewer residents than their area would suggest.

Until 1995, Ceuta was administered as part of Cádiz province and Melilla as part of Málaga province. Their statutes of autonomy that year made each of them an autonomous city, so neither belongs to a province today. Each consists of a single municipality with no provincial layer above it. For statistical purposes INE gives them the province-level codes 51 and 52, which continue the 01 to 50 sequence used for the provinces. In elections to the Congress of Deputies, each city is a constituency electing one deputy. This is why the map on this page has 52 shapes rather than 50.

Madrid is all three. The city of Madrid is the national capital and the seat of the Spanish government. The province of Madrid surrounds it and includes municipalities such as Móstoles, Alcalá de Henares and Getafe. The Community of Madrid is one of the 17 autonomous communities and shares the same borders as the province, making it one of seven single-province communities in Spain, along with Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, Murcia, Navarre and La Rioja. With about 7.0 million residents (INE, 1 January 2024), it is the most populous province in the country.

Andalusia has eight provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville. That is the second highest total of any autonomous community, behind Castile and León with nine. Seville hosts the regional government and is the largest Andalusian province in both area and population, with Málaga close behind on population. The community stretches from the Atlantic coast of Huelva and Cádiz to the Mediterranean shores of Málaga and Almería. The Sierra Nevada range lies in Granada and Almería, and Doñana National Park spans land in Huelva, Seville and Cádiz.

Several Spanish provinces have official names in a co-official regional language as well as a Castilian form, and in some cases only the regional form is legally official. Examples include A Coruña (La Coruña), Bizkaia (Vizcaya), Gipuzkoa (Guipúzcoa), Araba/Álava, Girona (Gerona), Lleida (Lérida), Ourense (Orense) and Illes Balears (Islas Baleares). National laws adopted the Catalan and Galician forms in the 1990s and the Basque forms Araba/Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa in 2011. This map uses the regional forms for most of them, so look for Bizkaia rather than Vizcaya, while Álava keeps its Castilian label. You can rename any label in the editor.

Autonomous communities are the first administrative level in Spain and hold real political power, with their own parliaments, presidents and budgets, and responsibility for areas such as health and education. Provinces are the second level, grouped inside those communities. Most are run by a provincial council (diputación) that supports smaller municipalities. The Basque provinces have foral deputations, the islands have island councils (cabildos and consells), and the seven single-province communities absorbed their councils. The communities date from the 1978 Constitution and the provincial boundaries from 1833. Each province is also a constituency for the Congress of Deputies.

The editor on this page works directly in your browser. Pick one province and give it a color, or paste a list of values for all 52 units to produce a choropleth with its own legend. Pins can mark cities or sites, and you can edit or hide province labels and change border thickness, fonts and background. You do not need an account to use the editor. On the free plan, exports are standard PNG files with a small Ultimaps credit, and the Pro plan adds high-resolution PNG, SVG and PDF.