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Open data study

The highest and lowest provincial capitals in Spain

Ávila is the highest provincial capital in Spain, at 1,125 m above sea level, and Cádiz the lowest, at 4 m. We ranked all 50 with elevation data from Spain’s National Geographic Institute (IGN), listed Ceuta and Melilla separately, and you can download the data.

By the Mapsfera Team Published

Key figures

  • 1,125 m Ávila, the highest provincial capital
  • 4 m Cádiz, the lowest (Melilla, at 2 m, if you count the autonomous cities)
  • 1,121 m between the highest and the lowest capital
  • 223 m is the median elevation: half of the capitals are above it and half below

Ready-to-quote facts

  • Ávila (1,125 m) is Spain’s highest provincial capital, followed by Soria (1,056 m) and Segovia (1,003 m).
  • Cádiz (4 m) is the lowest provincial capital. Counting the autonomous cities, the lowest is Melilla (2 m).
  • Eight of the ten highest capitals are in Castile and León, and all nine of that region’s capitals rank in the top 14.
  • 16 of Spain’s 50 provincial capitals sit above 600 m and 18 below 50 m.
  • Madrid sits at 645 m, the 15th highest provincial capital.

Feel free to use them as they are, crediting “Source: Mapsfera” with a link to this page.

All 52 capitals on the map

Map of Spain with the provincial capitals colored by elevation Melilla: 2 m Cádiz: 4 m Santander: 5 m Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: 5 m Alicante: 5 m Málaga: 6 m A Coruña: 6 m Bilbao: 7 m Sevilla: 8 m San Sebastián: 8 m Huelva: 8 m Valencia: 13 m Barcelona: 13 m Pontevedra: 17 m Palma: 19 m Almería: 23 m Ceuta: 25 m Castellón de la Plana: 28 m Santa Cruz de Tenerife: 41 m Murcia: 42 m Tarragona: 50 m Girona: 68 m Córdoba: 110 m Ourense: 131 m Lleida: 150 m Badajoz: 187 m Zaragoza: 210 m Oviedo: 235 m Logroño: 381 m Cáceres: 438 m Pamplona: 440 m Lugo: 460 m Huesca: 487 m Toledo: 516 m Vitoria-Gasteiz: 524 m Jaén: 574 m Ciudad Real: 625 m Madrid: 645 m Zamora: 656 m Albacete: 681 m Granada: 682 m Guadalajara: 692 m Valladolid: 694 m Palencia: 737 m Salamanca: 796 m León: 830 m Burgos: 854 m Teruel: 916 m Cuenca: 988 m Segovia: 1,003 m Soria: 1,056 m Ávila: 1,125 m Ávila 1,125 m Soria 1,056 m Segovia 1,003 m Cádiz 4 m Melilla 2 m
  • Under 50 m
  • 50–300 m
  • 300–600 m
  • 600–900 m
  • 900 m or more
Each dot is a provincial capital (plus Ceuta and Melilla), placed at the point whose elevation is given. The Canary Islands are in the inset.

The capitals, from highest to lowest

Tap a column header to sort the table.

Rank Capital Autonomous community Elevation
1 Ávila Ávila province Castile and León 1,125 m*
2 Soria Soria province Castile and León 1,056 m
3 Segovia Segovia province Castile and León 1,003 m
4 Cuenca Cuenca province Castilla–La Mancha 988 m
5 Teruel Teruel province Aragon 916 m
6 Burgos Burgos province Castile and León 854 m*
7 León León province Castile and León 830 m
8 Salamanca Salamanca province Castile and León 796 m
9 Palencia Palencia province Castile and León 737 m
10 Valladolid Valladolid province Castile and León 694 m
11 Guadalajara Guadalajara province Castilla–La Mancha 692 m
12 Granada Granada province Andalusia 682 m
13 Albacete Albacete province Castilla–La Mancha 681 m*
14 Zamora Zamora province Castile and León 656 m
15 Madrid Madrid province Community of Madrid 645 m
16 Ciudad Real Ciudad Real province Castilla–La Mancha 625 m
17 Jaén Jaén province Andalusia 574 m
18 Vitoria-Gasteiz Álava province Basque Country 524 m*
19 Toledo Toledo province Castilla–La Mancha 516 m
20 Huesca Huesca province Aragon 487 m*
21 Lugo Lugo province Galicia 460 m
22 Pamplona Navarre province Navarre 440 m
23 Cáceres Cáceres province Extremadura 438 m
24 Logroño La Rioja province La Rioja 381 m
25 Oviedo Asturias province Asturias 235 m
26 Zaragoza Zaragoza province Aragon 210 m
27 Badajoz Badajoz province Extremadura 187 m*
28 Lleida Lleida province Catalonia 150 m
29 Ourense Ourense province Galicia 131 m
30 Córdoba Córdoba province Andalusia 110 m
31 Girona Girona province Catalonia 68 m
32 Tarragona Tarragona province Catalonia 50 m
33 Murcia Murcia province Region of Murcia 42 m
34 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Santa Cruz de Tenerife province Canary Islands 41 m
35 Castellón de la Plana Castellón province Valencian Community 28 m
— Ceuta Autonomous city Ceuta 25 m
36 Almería Almería province Andalusia 23 m*
37 Palma Balearic Islands province Balearic Islands 19 m*
38 Pontevedra Pontevedra province Galicia 17 m
39 Barcelona Barcelona province Catalonia 13 m*
39 Valencia Valencia province Valencian Community 13 m
41 Huelva Huelva province Andalusia 8 m
41 San Sebastián Gipuzkoa province Basque Country 8 m*
41 Sevilla Seville province Andalusia 8 m
44 Bilbao Bizkaia province Basque Country 7 m
45 A Coruña A Coruña province Galicia 6 m
45 Málaga Málaga province Andalusia 6 m
47 Alicante Alicante province Valencian Community 5 m*
47 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Las Palmas province Canary Islands 5 m
47 Santander Cantabria province Cantabria 5 m
50 Cádiz Cádiz province Andalusia 4 m
— Melilla Autonomous city Melilla 2 m

* Elevation from the IGN MDT05 terrain model at the gazetteer point (see “Method”). All others from the IGN’s IGR Poblaciones.

The highest and lowest capital in each region

Regions with more than one province, from the largest to the smallest difference between their capitals.

Region Highest Lowest Difference
Aragon Teruel (916 m) Zaragoza (210 m) 706 m
Andalusia Granada (682 m) Cádiz (4 m) 678 m
Basque Country Vitoria-Gasteiz (524 m) Bilbao (7 m) 517 m
Castilla–La Mancha Cuenca (988 m) Toledo (516 m) 472 m
Castile and León Ávila (1,125 m) Zamora (656 m) 469 m
Galicia Lugo (460 m) A Coruña (6 m) 454 m
Extremadura Cáceres (438 m) Badajoz (187 m) 251 m
Catalonia Lleida (150 m) Barcelona (13 m) 137 m
Canary Islands Santa Cruz de Tenerife (41 m) Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (5 m) 36 m
Valencian Community Castellón de la Plana (28 m) Alicante (5 m) 23 m

Method

What is measured

Each capital’s elevation is the one at the point the IGN uses to locate its town center, usually the old town, the city hall or the main square, in meters above mean sea level at Alicante (Spain’s vertical datum), rounded to the meter.

A city does not have a single elevation: there can be tens of meters between neighborhoods. That is why we always compare the same kind of point from the same source.

Where each figure comes from

For 39 capitals it is the elevation the IGN publishes in IGR Poblaciones (populated places), checked against its MDT05 digital terrain model: almost all agree within a meter.

For 11, that figure was not reliable (the point was far from the center, or its elevation was more than 30 m off the terrain), so we use the MDT05 value at the point in the official gazetteer of municipalities (NGMEP). The “elevation_source” column in the CSV tells them apart.

How the ranking works

The 50 provincial capitals are ranked from highest to lowest. Capitals with the same elevation share a rank and the next one is skipped, as in a sports table. Ceuta and Melilla are autonomous cities, not provincial capitals: they appear in the table and the CSV without a rank.

How we work with data across the site

Download the data

Download the CSV

52 rows · 6 KB · UTF-8, comma-separated, with a decimal point. The first two lines, starting with #, hold the license and the citation.

The data and maps in this study are published under a CC BY 4.0 license: you may use, publish and adapt them, including commercially, as long as you credit the source with a link to this page. License text.

Suggested citation

Source: Mapsfera, “The highest and lowest provincial capitals in Spain” (2026), https://mapsfera.pages.dev/studies/highest-and-lowest-provincial-capitals-in-spain/

With a link, for a website

Source: <a href="https://mapsfera.pages.dev/studies/highest-and-lowest-provincial-capitals-in-spain/">Mapsfera, “The highest and lowest provincial capitals in Spain”</a>

Sources and licenses

Frequently asked questions

What is the highest provincial capital in Spain?

Ávila, at 1,125 m above sea level according to the IGN. Next come Soria (1,056 m) and Segovia (1,003 m).

And the lowest?

Cádiz, at 4 m. Counting the autonomous cities, Melilla is even lower: 2 m.

How high is Madrid?

645 m at the point the IGN uses for the city, which makes it the 15th highest provincial capital in Spain.

Why do other websites give a different elevation for the same city?

Each source measures at a different spot (the cathedral, the train station, the highest part of the old town) or with a different terrain model. Here every figure comes from the IGN and from the same kind of point, so they can be compared.

Writing about this?

If you are a journalist or a teacher and need a figure that is not in the table, or a map in another format, get in touch.

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