Nearest national park in Spain

All 16 national parks of Spain

Official OAPN area in hectares (1 km² = 100 ha; 1 ha = 2.47 acres); for the maritime-terrestrial parks it includes the sea. Year: when it was first declared a national park, even if it was later expanded or reclassified. Regions and provinces: those with land inside the park, according to the IGN boundaries.

How to use it

1. 1

   Choose your starting point

   Type a town, an address or coordinates, press “Use my location”, or click anywhere on the map. It works for trip planning too: search for the city or the hotel where you’ll stay.

2. 2

   See the parks by distance

   The list ranks all 16 parks by straight-line distance to the nearest point of each park’s boundary, with the distance to its center next to it. Distances are in kilometers, as in Spain; switch to miles with the “mi” button.

3. 3

   Get the drive

   Press “Get driving distance” for the road distance and drive time to the 15 nearest parks you can drive to. From each park you can show it on the map or open the route.

What it’s for

• Trips to Spain

  From Madrid, Barcelona, Seville or wherever you’re staying, see which national parks are within a day trip and how long the drive is.

• Road trips

  Plan a route through the north, the Pyrenees or Andalusia and see which parks are worth a detour from each stop.

• The islands

  Check whether the park you want to see is on your island, or whether you’ll need a ferry or a flight to get there.

• School projects

  Use the table of all 16 parks, with their regions and provinces, the year they were declared and their area, for a class or a report.

How it’s worked out

Spain’s national parks are its highest level of nature protection. They’re declared by law and make up the National Parks Network, run by the OAPN (Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales, the national parks agency) together with the regions where they lie. Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities (regions such as Andalusia or Catalonia) and 50 provinces, which is what the table lists for each park.

The distance is the shortest straight line (the geodesic on the WGS84 ellipsoid, computed with GeographicLib) from your point to the nearest point of each park’s boundary. If you’re inside a park, the distance is zero. The distance to the center uses a point inside the park, in its widest part: the geometric centroid can fall outside parks made of several pieces.

Boundaries are the OAPN’s official ones, as set by each park’s declaration and expansion laws, simplified to 50 meters so the map loads fast. Driving distance and time come from OSRM, with OpenStreetMap roads, on the free FOSSGIS server. The route goes to the road closest to the boundary point nearest to you, not to a specific entrance or visitor center. Times assume clear roads.

The two maritime-terrestrial parks (Archipiélago de Cabrera and Islas Atlánticas de Galicia) have no road: you visit them by boat. The four parks in the Canary Islands (Caldera de Taburiente, Garajonay, Teide and Timanfaya) can only be driven to from the same island; from the mainland or another island you need a ferry or a flight, and the tool says so instead of giving a route.

Spain’s national parks in numbers

Spain has 16 national parks. The oldest is Picos de Europa (1918) and the newest Sierra de las Nieves (2021). The region with the most is the Canary Islands (4), followed by Andalusia (3).

The largest by official area is Archipiélago de Cabrera (90,801 ha, 908 km²), mostly sea; leaving out the maritime-terrestrial parks (Archipiélago de Cabrera and Islas Atlánticas de Galicia), it’s Sierra Nevada (85,883 ha, 859 km²). The smallest is Tablas de Daimiel (3,030 ha, 30.3 km²).

Example: from the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the nearest is Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, 38.1 km from its boundary as the crow flies (43.7 km to its center).