03Places

The centre

Madrid on the plateau

Madrid is the capital and the largest city, on the Manzanares in the middle of the country, at 660 metres. The municipality covers 605.77 square kilometres and had 3,477,497 residents in 2025. Winters are cold, with frost, rain and occasional snow from December to February, and summers are hot and dry. On 14 August 2021 the Retiro recorded 40.7 degrees, the highest reading in the city centre. The royal palace stands on the western side of the centre, east of the river. The earlier building burned on 24 December 1734, and the present one rose between 1738 and 1755. It covers more than 135,000 square metres and holds 3,418 rooms, the largest royal palace in Europe. The facade facing the Plaza de la Armería rests on a rusticated base with tall columns, grey granite beside white limestone. Plaza Mayor is the main public square of the old city, built between 1580 and 1619, with the Puerta del Sol nearby. The Retiro sits at the edge of the centre, close to the Puerta de Alcalá and the Prado, across 1.4 square kilometres. It opened as a public park in 1868, and in 2021 it entered the World Heritage List with the Paseo del Prado. Barajas Airport opened in 1931, about 13 kilometres from the Puerta del Sol, and handled 68.1 million passengers in 2025.

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