Spain
in Southern Europe
Europe

National active POI Bordering countries
Country Quickfacts
Currency and Currency Code:
Euro - EUR
Spoken languages:
Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque, Occitan
Local electricity:
230 V - 50 Hz (plugs: C, F)
Mobile phone / cellular frequencies (MHz):
900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 3G, 4G
ISO 2-Letter code:
ES
Internet top level domain:
.es
Country phone prefix:
+34
Local Time (capital):
Timezone:
UTC/GMT offset: hours

Map of Spanish Unesco Heritage Sites

Click any of the markers above to learn more about the corresponding heritage site and learn more about Spain in Europe. The list below is ordered by name. The oldest site is Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada. On the list since 1984. The youngest site is Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana. On the list since 2011.

Name Since
Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada
Rising above the modern lower town, the Alhambra and the Albaycín, situated on two adjacent hills, form the medieval part of Granada. To the east of the Alhambra fortress and residence are the magnif...		 1984
Aranjuez Cultural Landscape
The Aranjuez cultural landscape is an entity of complex relationships: between nature and human activity, between sinuous watercourses and geometric landscape design, between the rural and the urban, ...		 2001
Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida
The colony of Augusta Emerita, which became present-day Mérida in Estremadura, was founded in 25 B.C. at the end of the Spanish Campaign and was the capital of Lusitania. The well-preserved remains o...		 1993
Archaeological Ensemble of Tárraco
Tárraco (modern-day Tarragona) was a major administrative and mercantile city in Roman Spain and the centre of the Imperial cult for all the Iberian provinces. It was endowed with many fine buildings...		 2000
Archaeological Site of Atapuerca
The caves of the Sierra de Atapuerca contain a rich fossil record of the earliest human beings in Europe, from nearly one million years ago and extending up to the Common Era. They represent an except...		 2000
Burgos Cathedral
Our Lady of Burgos was begun in the 13th century at the same time as the great cathedrals of the Ile-de-France and was completed in the 15th and 16th centuries. The entire history of Gothic art is sum...		 1984
Catalan Romanesque Churches of the Vall de Boí
The narrow Vall de Boí is situated in the high Pyrénées, in the Alta Ribagorça region and is surrounded by steep mountains. Each village in the valley contains a Romanesque church, and is surround...		 2000
Cathedral, Alcázar and Archivo de Indias in Seville
Together these three buildings form a remarkable monumental complex in the heart of Seville. The cathedral and the Alcázar – dating from the Reconquest of 1248 to the 16th century and imbued with M...		 1987
Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain
Seventeen decorated caves of the Paleolithic age were inscribed as an extension to the Altamira Cave, inscribed in 1985. The property will now appear on the List as Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Ca...		 1985
Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana
The Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana located on a sheer-sided mountain range parallel to the north-western coast of the island of Mallorca. Millennia of agriculture in an environment with...		 2011
Doñana National Park
Doñana National Park in Andalusia occupies the right bank of the Guadalquivir river at its estuary on the Atlantic Ocean. It is notable for the great diversity of its biotopes, especially lagoons, ma...		 1994
Garajonay National Park
Laurel forest covers some 70% of this park, situated in the middle of the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands archipelago. The presence of springs and numerous streams assures a lush vegetation ...		 1986
Historic Centre of Cordoba
Cordoba's period of greatest glory began in the 8th century after the Moorish conquest, when some 300 mosques and innumerable palaces and public buildings were built to rival the splendours of Constan...		 1984
Historic City of Toledo
Successively a Roman municipium, the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom, a fortress of the Emirate of Cordoba, an outpost of the Christian kingdoms fighting the Moors and, in the 16th century, the temp...		 1986
Historic Walled Town of Cuenca
Built by the Moors in a defensive position at the heart of the Caliphate of Cordoba, Cuenca is an unusually well-preserved medieval fortified city. Conquered by the Castilians in the 12th century, it ...		 1996
Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture
Ibiza provides an excellent example of the interaction between the marine and coastal ecosystems. The dense prairies of oceanic Posidonia (seagrass), an important endemic species found only in the Med...		 1999
La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia
Built between 1482 and 1533, this group of buildings was originally used for trading in silk (hence its name, the Silk Exchange) and it has always been a centre for commerce. It is a masterpiece of la...		 1996
Las Médulas
In the 1st century A.D. the Roman Imperial authorities began to exploit the gold deposits of this region in north-west Spain, using a technique based on hydraulic power. After two centuries of working...		 1997
Monastery and Site of the Escurial, Madrid
Built at the end of the 16th century on a plan in the form of a grill, the instrument of the martyrdom of St Lawrence, the Escurial Monastery stands in an exceptionally beautiful site in Castile. Its ...		 1984
Monuments of Oviedo and the Kingdom of the Asturias
In the 9th century the flame of Christianity was kept alive in the Iberian peninsula in the tiny Kingdom of the Asturias. Here an innovative pre-Romanesque architectural style was created that was to ...		 1985
Mudejar Architecture of Aragon
The development in the 12th century of Mudejar art in Aragon resulted from the particular political, social and cultural conditions that prevailed in Spain after the Reconquista. This art, influenced ...		 1986
Old City of Salamanca
This ancient university town north-west of Madrid was first conquered by the Carthaginians in the 3rd century B.C. It then became a Roman settlement before being ruled by the Moors until the 11th cent...		 1988
Old Town of Ávila with its Extra-Muros Churches
Founded in the 11th century to protect the Spanish territories from the Moors, this 'City of Saints and Stones', the birthplace of St Teresa and the burial place of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, ha...		 1985
Old Town of Cáceres
The city's history of battles between Moors and Christians is reflected in its architecture, which is a blend of Roman, Islamic, Northern Gothic and Italian Renaissance styles. Of the 30 or so towers ...		 1986
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct
The Roman aqueduct of Segovia, probably built c. A.D. 50, is remarkably well preserved. This impressive construction, with its two tiers of arches, forms part of the setting of the magnificent histori...		 1985
Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona
These are two of the finest contributions to Barcelona's architecture by the Catalan art nouveau architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The Palau de la Música Catalana is an exuberant steel-framed st...		 1997
Palmeral of Elche
The Palmeral of Elche, a landscape of groves of date palms, was formally laid out, with elaborate irrigation systems, at the time the Muslim city of Elche was erected, towards the end of the tenth cen...		 2000
Poblet Monastery
This Cistercian abbey in Catalonia is one of the largest in Spain. At its centre is a 12th-century church. The austere, majestic monastery, which has a fortified royal residence and contains the panth...		 1991
Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda and Baeza
The urban morphology of the two small cities of Úbeda and Baeza in southern Spain dates back to the Moorish 9th century and to the Reconquista in the 13th century. An important development took place...		 2003
Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula
The late prehistoric rock-art sites of the Mediterranean seaboard of the Iberian peninsula form an exceptionally large group. Here the way of life during a critical phase of human development is vivid...		 1998
Roman Walls of Lugo
The walls of Lugo were built in the later part of the 3rd century to defend the Roman town of Lucus. The entire circuit survives intact and is the finest example of late Roman fortifications in wester...		 2000
Route of Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela was proclaimed the first European Cultural itinerary by the Council of Europe in 1987. This route from the French-Spanish border was – and still is – taken by pilgrims to Sa...		 1993
Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe
The monastery is an outstanding repository of four centuries of Spanish religious architecture. It symbolizes two significant events in world history that occurred in 1492: the Reconquest of the Iberi...		 1993
San Cristóbal de La Laguna
San Cristóbal de La Laguna, in the Canary Islands, has two nuclei: the original, unplanned Upper Town; and the Lower Town, the first ideal 'city-territory' laid out according to philosophical princip...		 1999
San Millán Yuso and Suso Monasteries
The monastic community founded by St Millán in the mid-6th century became a place of pilgrimage. A fine Romanesque church built in honour of the holy man still stands at the site of Suso. It was here...		 1997
Santiago de Compostela (Old Town)
This famous pilgrimage site in north-west Spain became a symbol in the Spanish Christians' struggle against Islam. Destroyed by the Muslims at the end of the 10th century, it was completely rebuilt in...		 1985
Teide National Park
Situated on the island of Tenerife, Teide National Park features the Teide-Pico Viejo stratovolcano that, at 3,718 m, is the highest peak on Spanish soil. Rising 7,500 m above the ocean floor, it is r...		 2007
Tower of Hercules
The Tower of Hercules has served as a lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of La Coruña harbour in north-western Spain since the late 1st century A.D. when the Romans built the Farum Brigantium. T...		 2009
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá de Henares
Founded by Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros in the early 16th century, Alcalá de Henares was the world's first planned university city. It was the original model for the Civitas Dei (City of God), the i...		 1998
Vizcaya Bridge
Vizcaya Bridge straddles the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary, west of Bilbao. It was designed by the Basque architect Alberto de Palacio and completed in 1893. The 45-m-high bridge with its span of 160...		 2006
Works of Antoni Gaudí
Seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in or near Barcelona testify to Gaudí’s exceptional creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technol...		 1984