50 Fun Facts About Madrid

Madrid lies on which river?

The Manzanares was hemmed in by a ring road until the city buried the traffic in tunnels and opened the banks as the Madrid Río park.

Madrid stands about 650 metres above sea level, but which of these European capitals stands higher still?

Andorra la Vella, in the Pyrenees, sits more than 1,000 metres up. Madrid's own height on the Meseta is one reason its winters turn cold and crisp.

As of 2025, Madrid is the European Union's second most populous city proper, behind which capital?

Berlin has a few hundred thousand more residents inside its city limits. Count whole metropolitan areas instead and Paris leads, with Madrid again in second place.

Madrid began in the 9th century as a border fortress built by the emir of which Andalusian city?

Córdoba's emir Muhammad I raised the fort to guard the approach to Toledo, and stretches of its 9th-century wall still stand below the Almudena Cathedral.

Which king made Madrid the permanent seat of his court in June 1561?

Philip II settled the court there without ever formally declaring Madrid the capital, yet a town of under 20,000 people grew several times over within a generation.

Between 1601 and 1606 the Spanish court left Madrid for which city?

Valladolid hosted the court at the urging of Philip III's favourite, the Duke of Lerma. Madrid emptied by tens of thousands of people until the king returned.

Which king, nicknamed 'the best mayor of Madrid', gave the city sewers, street lighting and the future Prado?

Charles III had already ruled Naples for 25 years and gave up that crown to take Spain's. His statue now rides in the Puerta del Sol.

The 1766 Esquilache Riots in Madrid were provoked by a decree banning what?

Traditional hats and long cloaks could hide a face and a weapon, the minister argued. The riots that followed drove the king out of Madrid to Aranjuez.

Which artist painted the French firing squads that answered Madrid's uprising of 2 May 1808?

Francisco Goya painted The Third of May 1808 six years after the event. The rising had begun when a crowd tried to stop the last royal children being taken to France.

Which regime's constitution first named Madrid as Spain's capital?

The Second Republic fixed the capital in Madrid in Article 5 of its 1931 constitution. Five years later, with the city under attack, the same Republic moved its government to Valencia.

Which battle cry, popularised by Dolores Ibárruri, rallied Madrid's defenders against Franco's army in 1936?

"¡No pasarán!", they shall not pass, was borrowed from the French at Verdun. Madrid held out under siege until March 1939, and the cry became an anti-fascist slogan worldwide.

The countercultural movement centred on Madrid from the late 1970s through the 1980s is known as what?

La Movida was subsidised rather than fought by the city's socialist mayor, Enrique Tierno Galván, and its fame drew visitors such as Andy Warhol and the Ramones.

The heraldic symbol of Madrid, depicted in a statue on the Puerta del Sol, shows a bear and what?

A strawberry tree, the madroño of the city's coat of arms. The 20-tonne bear nuzzling it went up in 1967 and became the spot where Madrileños arrange to meet.

A pavement slab in the Puerta del Sol marks what?

Kilometre Zero is the starting point of Spain's radial roads. The slab lies outside the old Post Office, whose clock all Spain watches at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Which Madrid square, finished in 1619, has a bronze of Philip III on horseback at its centre?

Plaza Mayor looks serene today, but it has been swept by three great fires and once staged bullfights, coronations and trials of the Inquisition.

At New Year, Spaniards eat twelve of what, one per chime of Madrid's Puerta del Sol clock?

Grapes: the custom is recorded by the 1890s and, in the oft-told story, took off in 1909 when Alicante growers pushed it to shift a bumper harvest.

Madrid's Royal Palace is one of the largest in Europe; about how many rooms does it have?

About 3,400: the official count is 3,418, yet the royal family lives in none of them, keeping the palace for state ceremonies and residing at the smaller Zarzuela Palace.

Madrid's Royal Alcázar, forerunner of the Royal Palace, burned down on what date in 1734?

Christmas Eve: the fire raged for four days and destroyed more than 500 paintings from the royal collection.

Which Velázquez masterpiece hangs in Madrid's Prado?

Las Meninas hangs in a building designed in 1785 as a natural history museum. By the time it opened in 1819, the king had decided to hang the royal paintings there instead.

Whose lost tomb did scientists announce they had found in a Madrid convent in 2015?

Miguel de Cervantes asked to be buried with the Trinitarian nuns, whose order had helped ransom him from five years of captivity in Algiers.

The Reina Sofía Museum's most famous work is which 1937 Picasso painting?

Guernica spent decades in New York because Picasso would not let it enter Spain under Franco. It arrived only in 1981, once democracy had returned.

The Prado, the Reina Sofía and which third museum make up Madrid's 'Golden Triangle of Art'?

The Thyssen-Bornemisza began as a baron's private collection, first lent to Spain and then bought outright in 1993 after his wife, a former Miss Spain, pressed for Madrid.

Egypt gave Madrid's Temple of Debod to Spain in 1968 in gratitude for what?

Helping save the monuments of Nubia: Spain joined the UNESCO-led rescue of temples from the waters rising behind the Aswan Dam, and Debod was rebuilt in Madrid stone by stone.

Which Madrid park was royal property until 1868?

El Retiro was laid out in the 1630s as the grounds of Philip IV's palace. It became a public park when the revolution of 1868 drove Isabella II from the throne.

A fountain in a Madrid park is crowned by a rare public statue of which falling figure?

Lucifer: Ricardo Bellver's Fallen Angel was inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost, and the monument is said to stand exactly 666 metres above sea level.

Which Madrid landmark, built as the headquarters of Spain's postal service, has housed the city hall since 2007?

Cibeles Palace opened in 1919 as a cathedral-sized head post office. The city council began moving in during 2007, and the old mail hall is now an arts centre.

Which king put his own money into the Madrid Metro's first line?

Alfonso XIII stepped in when public fundraising fell short, then opened the line himself in 1919. One of its first stations, Chamberí, closed in 1966 and is now a museum.

As of 2025, the Madrid Metro is Europe's third-longest by route length, behind which two systems?

Moscow and London have longer networks. Madrid's trains still run on the left, because the city's road traffic did the same until 1924.

Madrid's Barajas airport bears which prime minister's name?

Adolfo Suárez led Spain from Franco's dictatorship to democracy. He died in March 2014, and the airport took his name within days.

Real Madrid's home since 1947 bears the name of which long-serving club president?

Santiago Bernabéu played for the club, coached it and then ran it as president for almost 35 years. The ground took his name in 1955, while he was still in charge.

Real Madrid's stadium staged the 1964 European Championship final; which tournament's final did it host in 1982?

The World Cup final of 1982, Italy's 3–1 win over West Germany, was played there. In 1964 Spain had beaten the Soviet Union on the same pitch, four years after refusing to face them.

Atlético Madrid left the Vicente Calderón in 2017 for which stadium?

Metropolitano revives the name of the ground Atlético used from 1923 to 1966. The new stadium was rebuilt from an athletics arena nicknamed La Peineta, the comb.

Which nickname do Atlético Madrid supporters go by?

The club is thought to draw its support mainly from working-class Madrid and has Spain's third-largest fan base.

Las Ventas, inaugurated in 1931, is Spain's largest what?

Bullring: Las Ventas seats almost 24,000 for bullfights, and out of season its sand has hosted concerts by the Beatles, AC/DC and Radiohead.

The first edition of Don Quixote was printed in 1604 at Juan de la Cuesta's press on which Madrid street?

The homes of several Golden Age writers survive in the Barrio de las Letras nearby.

Which Madrid-born Golden Age dramatist wrote Fuenteovejuna?

Lope de Vega was banished from Madrid in 1588 for libelling a former lover and her family, and sailed with the Spanish Armada weeks after his wedding that same year.

Which Madrid neighbourhood is the city's gay quarter, compared to San Francisco's Castro?

Chueca is the home of Madrid Pride, which grew from a 1970s protest march into a festival big enough to bring WorldPride to the city in 2017.

Which UN agency has its headquarters in Madrid?

The city also hosts the Ibero-American General Secretariat and the Instituto Cervantes.

The Complutense University of Madrid traces its origin to schools founded in 1293 in which nearby town?

Alcalá de Henares kept the university for more than three centuries before it was moved wholesale to Madrid in 1836. The town it left behind is now a World Heritage Site.

As of 2025, Spain's tallest skyscrapers stand together in which Madrid business district?

Cuatro Torres rose in the 2000s on Real Madrid's former training ground, and its name is already out of date: a fifth tower joined the original four in 2021.

Which open-air flea market takes over the streets of central Madrid every Sunday morning?

El Rastro packs more than a thousand stalls into the streets around the Plaza de Cascorro and is gone by mid-afternoon. In older Spanish a rastro was a slaughterhouse, and one stood nearby.

Which park west of central Madrid was a royal hunting estate until it passed to the city in 1931?

Casa de Campo was fortified during the Civil War, when the front line ran through it, and trenches and bunkers still survive in the park that now holds Madrid's zoo.

Before Tokyo won the 2020 Olympics, which city knocked Madrid out in a tie-break vote?

Istanbul tied Madrid for second place and won the run-off 49–45. Four years earlier Madrid had topped the first round of voting for 2016, only to lose the final to Rio de Janeiro.

Which pope consecrated Madrid's Almudena Cathedral, more than a century after its first stone was laid?

John Paul II consecrated it in 1993, on his fourth visit to Spain. Building had begun in 1883 but stopped during the Civil War, and the design changed along the way.

The 'Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis' invaded Madrid in 1823 to restore whose absolute rule?

Ferdinand VII owed his rescue to France, the same country that had forced him off his throne in 1808. The invasion ended three years of liberal government.

As of 2025, Guinness World Records lists Madrid's Botín as the world's oldest what?

Restaurant: Botín is said to date from 1725 and still roasts suckling pig in its original wood-fired oven. Novelists from Galdós to Graham Greene have written it into their books.

Which Oscar-winning director made his name filming Madrid's anything-goes nightlife of the early 1980s?

Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid to study at the national film school, found the dictatorship had closed it, and taught himself instead, starting with the low-budget Pepi, Luci, Bom in 1980.

Madrid's alternative scene is most associated with which neighbourhood?

Malasaña is named after Manuela Malasaña, a teenage seamstress killed by French soldiers during the Madrid uprising of 1808.

Which Spanish company put up one of Europe's first skyscrapers on Madrid's Gran Vía in 1929?

Telefónica's 89-metre tower was the tallest building in Madrid until 1953. During the Civil War the city's defenders used it as a lookout, which made it a regular target.

Which patron saint of Madrid, a medieval farm labourer, is honoured each 15 May with picnics and chotis dancing?

San Isidro was a farmhand who, in the best-known legend, prayed while an angel ploughed his fields for him. Madrid marks his day with rosquillas and dancing on the Prairie of San Isidro.