Provinces of Spain by population

Name: Provinces of Spain by population, 2021
Creator: Instituto Nacional de Estadística
License: INE reuse terms (attribution required)

Madrid province had the highest population of 52 provinces in 2021, at 6.75 million. Ceuta province had the lowest, at 83,517. The median was 607,127 and the figure for Spain was 47.39 million. Source: the Instituto Nacional de Estadística.

Highest6,751,251Madrid province

Lowest83,517Ceuta province

Median607,12752 provinces

Spain47,385,107History

All provinces, 2021

CSV Chart (SVG)

persons. Source: INE. Retrieved 2026-10-07.

Full ranking

Rank	Provinces	2021 persons	Change on 2020
1	Madrid province	6,751,251	-0.4%
2	Barcelona province	5,714,730	-0.5%
3	Valencia province	2,589,312	-0.1%
4	Seville province	1,947,852	-0.1%
5	Alicante province	1,881,762	+0.1%
6	Málaga province	1,695,651	+0.6%
7	Murcia province	1,518,486	+0.5%
8	Cádiz province	1,245,960	+0.2%
9	Balearic Islands province	1,173,008	+0.1%
10	Biscay province	1,154,334	-0.4%
11	Las Palmas province	1,128,539	-0.2%
12	A Coruña province	1,120,134	-0.1%
13	Santa Cruz de Tenerife province	1,044,405	-0%
14	Asturias province	1,011,792	-0.7%
15	Zaragoza province	967,452	-0.5%
16	Pontevedra province	944,275	-0.1%
17	Granada province	921,338	+0.2%
18	Tarragona province	822,309	+0.7%
19	Girona province	786,596	+0.6%
20	Córdoba province	776,789	-0.6%
21	Almería province	731,792	+0.5%
22	Gipuzkoa province	726,033	-0.1%
23	Toledo province	709,403	+0.8%
24	Badajoz province	669,943	-0.3%
25	Navarre province	661,537	+0.1%
26	Jaén province	627,190	-0.7%
27	Castellón province	587,064	+0.3%
28	Cantabria province	584,507	+0.3%
29	Huelva province	525,835	+0.3%
30	Valladolid province	519,361	-0.2%
31	Ciudad Real province	492,591	-0.5%
32	León province	451,706	-1%
33	Lleida province	439,727	+0.3%
34	Cáceres province	389,558	-0.6%
35	Albacete province	386,464	-0.5%
36	Burgos province	356,055	-0.4%
37	Álava province	333,626	-0.1%
38	Salamanca province	327,338	-0.6%
39	Lugo province	326,013	-0.6%
40	La Rioja province	319,796	-0%
41	Ourense province	305,223	-0.5%
42	Guadalajara province	265,588	+1.4%
43	Huesca province	224,264	+0.7%
44	Cuenca province	195,516	-0.3%
45	Zamora province	168,725	-1.1%
46	Palencia province	159,123	-0.7%
47	Ávila province	158,421	+0.5%
48	Segovia province	153,663	+0.1%
49	Teruel province	134,545	+0.3%
50	Soria province	88,747	-0.2%
51	Melilla province	86,261	-0.9%
52	Ceuta province	83,517	-0.8%

Other periods

About this ranking

Resident population. Spain and the EU: 1 January, with Spanish figures from the official municipal register (Padrón). United States: Census Bureau population estimates for 1 July. Other countries and the World: World Bank mid-year estimates, which count all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship.

For Denmark, Statistics Denmark counts the registered resident population on 1 January. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are excluded. The annual series selects the first-quarter reference date from FOLK1A. The World Bank series exists for every country, so use it (through compare) to rank countries on one basis.

Every value in the ranking comes from the same publisher and the same period, so the provinces are compared on one definition. Equal values share a rank.

How to cite

Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). Cifras oficiales de población de los municipios españoles: Revisión del Padrón municipal (tabla 29005). https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Tabla.htm?t=29005. Retrieved 2026-10-07.

Use this data in your AI agent

Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:

Rank Provinces of Spain by population using official data, and cite the source.

rank_places {"indicator":"population","level":"province","within":"Spain","limit":10}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/rank?indicator=population&level=province&within=Spain&limit=10

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor in one step. The trial answers 25 calls a day without an account.

Questions

Which province has the highest population?

Madrid province, with 6.75 million in 2021, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística.

Which province has the lowest population?

Ceuta province, with 83,517 in 2021.

Where does this ranking come from?

Every value comes from one source and one period, so the places are comparable: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Cifras oficiales de población de los municipios españoles: Revisión del Padrón municipal (tabla 29005). Retrieved 2026-10-07.