Costa Tropical
Granada’s short, steep coast between Nerja and Motril, where the Sierra Nevada drops almost straight into the sea. Subtropical fruit grows on the terraces above Almuñécar and Salobreña.
Explore Costa Tropical →Discover the Spanish coast
The costas of Spain, one map
Pick a costa, refine the map by what you want to find, and dive into the places worth knowing.
229Places mapped
10Kinds of place
17Coasts covered
Why the costas of Spain
Spain’s coastline is divided into costas — named stretches of shore, each with its own character. The Costa Blanca’s turquoise coves and palm-lined promenades; the wild cliffs of the Costa Brava; the sun-soaked beaches of the Costa del Sol. CostaMap gathers the places worth knowing — not just the famous beaches, but the quiet coves, hilltop villages, nature reserves and lookout points — and puts them on a single, honest map.
Latest on CostaMap
Browse the Costa Blanca guide →VillageUbriqueVillageSetenil de las BodegasTownSanlúcar de BarramedaTownSan RoqueTownSan FernandoTownRota
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Pick a costa
Choose your stretch of coast — the Costa Blanca is live now, with the rest on the way.
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Filter by what you want
Beaches, coves, viewpoints, hilltop villages, nature reserves, marinas and more — refine the map to your trip.
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Dive into the place
Open any marker for the story, photos and practical details — one honest guide per place.
One map, every kind of place
Explore the map
More than two hundred places across ten kinds — historic sites, towns, natural parks, museums, viewpoints, beaches, villages, theme parks, hiking trails and marinas. Tap a place type to filter the map.
Pick your stretch of coast
The costas of Spain
Sixteen named stretches of mainland coast plus the Balearic Islands — seventeen pages, each with its own map. The Costa Blanca is the deepest so far; places are added coast by coast.
How many costas does Spain have?
There is no official register. The costas are names, not administrative units — most of them coined during the tourism boom of the mid–twentieth century, a few of them older, and several of them overlapping. Spain has roughly 8,000 km of coastline spread across ten mainland regions and two archipelagos, and where you draw the line between one costa and the next is partly a matter of which sign you read.
The oldest of the names is the Costa Brava, used in print from 1908. The rest followed in the 1950s and 1960s, when each province wanted a name a travel agent could sell. That is why the Costa de Barcelona, the Costa del Garraf and the Costa del Maresme all describe pieces of the same province — and why the Costa Valenciana and the Costa del Azahar are sometimes treated as one coast and sometimes as two.
CostaMap maps sixteen named stretches of mainland coast plus the Balearic Islands. Where names compete, we keep the one used locally and on signage.
The Mediterranean, south to north
Costa del Sol
The Málaga coast, and the most developed shoreline in Spain: Málaga city, Torremolinos, Marbella and Nerja, with the white villages of the Axarquía and Ronda in the hills behind.
Explore Costa del Sol →
Costa de Almería
The driest coast in Europe. Cabo de Gata’s volcanic headlands and empty coves sit beside the greenhouse plains of El Ejido and the old mining towns of the Levante Almeriense.
Explore Costa de Almería →
Costa Cálida
Murcia’s “warm coast”, built around the Mar Menor lagoon — shallow, warm and separated from the Mediterranean by the sandbar of La Manga — and the naval city of Cartagena.
Explore Costa Cálida →
Costa Blanca
Alicante province: Benidorm and Torrevieja at one end of the scale, the coves of the Marina Alta and the cliffs of Cap de la Nau at the other. The stretch this site knows best.
Explore Costa Blanca →
Costa Valenciana
The Valencia coast — long city beaches, the rice fields and lagoon of the Albufera, and the sandy shores of Gandia and the Safor.
Explore Costa Valenciana →
Costa del Azahar
The “orange blossom coast” of Castellón, named for the citrus groves inland. Peñíscola’s walled headland and the wetlands of the Serra d’Irta are the landmarks.
Explore Costa del Azahar →
Costa Dorada
Tarragona’s wide golden beaches, Roman Tarraco, the theme parks around Salou and the Ebro Delta — the largest wetland on the Catalan coast.
Explore Costa Dorada →
Costa del Garraf
A short, dramatic stretch southwest of Barcelona where the Garraf massif meets the sea. Sitges is the anchor; the limestone hills behind it are a natural park.
Explore Costa del Garraf →
Costa de Barcelona
The coastline of Barcelona province as a whole — city beaches, the Maresme to the north, the Garraf to the south, and the Penedès wine country just inland.
Explore Costa de Barcelona →
Costa del Maresme
The commuter coast north of Barcelona: Mataró, Calella and Canet, a continuous line of beaches served by one of Spain’s oldest railways.
Explore Costa del Maresme →
Costa Brava
Girona’s “wild coast”, and the one that started the naming habit in 1908. Pine-backed coves, Cadaqués, Begur and the Cap de Creus headland.
Explore Costa Brava →The Atlantic and Cantabrian coasts
Costa de la Luz
Atlantic, not Mediterranean: the Cádiz and Huelva coast of long open beaches, Atlantic wind at Tarifa, and the Doñana wetlands.
Explore Costa de la Luz →
Costa Verde
Asturias — the “green coast”, where cliffs, river mouths and small fishing ports sit below the Picos de Europa.
Explore Costa Verde →
Costa de Cantabria
Cantabria’s beaches and estuaries, from Santander’s bay to the dunes of Oyambre and the medieval town of Santillana del Mar.
Explore Costa de Cantabria →
Costa Vasca
The Basque coast: San Sebastián’s La Concha, the flysch cliffs at Zumaia, and Bilbao’s estuary reaching inland.
Explore Costa Vasca →The islands
Illes Balears
Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera — not a costa in the mainland sense, but part of the same Mediterranean shoreline and mapped here alongside it.
Explore Illes Balears →What “mapped” means here
Every coast above has its own page and its own map. What differs is depth: 229 places are on the map so far, sorted into ten kinds — historic sites, towns, natural parks, museums, viewpoints, beaches, villages, theme parks, hiking trails and marinas. The Costa Blanca is the most complete, because that is where the project started. New places are added coast by coast rather than spread thinly across all seventeen at once.
Each place gets the same treatment: where it is, what it actually is, how to reach it, when to go, and what is worth seeing nearby. No affiliate ranking, no invented star ratings — just the location and an honest description. If a place is quiet in November, the page says so.
