The first name documented is the one that had in the time of andalusí・Ma・rīrīd (AFImaʤ riː tˁ), which gave in old Spanish Magerit[maʤ eit], on the origin of the long hypothesis has been formulated to the history of the multitude.

The most widespread theory until recent times was that of the Arabist Jaime Oliver Asín, who stated in 1959 that Majricil or Mağrĭ ( andin two ways) to represent sound, deriving from the same source added "to" or to one river, to the same. or the suffix romance -it of the Latin -etum indicating abundance (the Arabic-romance hybrids were frequent in al-Andalus). At first, Oliver Asín stated, however, that the current name of Madrid does not come from Mağrīĭ but from the Mozarabic romance, Matrice, pronounced Matrich with the meaning of "matrix" or "source". The two toponyms, Arabic and romance, according to Oliver's initial hypothesis, coexisted in time and were used by Muslim and Christian populations, who lived respectively in the present hills of Almudena and the Vistillas, separated by a stream running along the current street of Segovia, which originates both names. Oliver went further, claiming that from these two populations comes the popular name "the Madriles", in plural, given to the city. Shortly after, however, Oliver dismissed this double-name theory and simply stated that Madrid's name comes from the Arabic Mağrīĭ. ​

The linguist Joan Coromines proposed in 1960 an alternative theory, pointing out that Mağrībou is in fact more than Matrich phonetic arabization, with metaphtheses of and not with the Arabic word relating, a possibility already pointed out by Oliver Asín that discarded. for reasons not exclusively linguistic. This theory was later developed by Arabist and linguist Federico Corriente Córdoba, ​ and is the most widespread in the present ​.

Capitality

Zero kilometer at Puerta del Sol

Capitality, with its spatial, functional and physical effects, is the differentiating factor of Madrid with respect to the other Spanish cities. Capitality promoted the population growth and economic and cultural prosperity of the village. Although the permanent establishment of the Court since 1561 in Madrid granted the Villa the status of capital (of the Catholic Monarchy and the Spanish Empire then), legal recognition of the function of capitality would have to wait longer. Specifically, it was not until 1931, with the advent of the Second Spanish Republic, that this fact was constitutionally official. Similarly, it was officially recognized as the capital of Spain during Franco's Franco-Spanish term in the Madrid Special Regime Act of 11 July 1963, ​ a fact that was later sanctioned in the 1978 Constitution. Until 2006, no law, the Madrid Capital and Special Regime Act, was enacted, ​ by which the Parliament legislatively developed consequences of this specificity.

Since 1561 it has lost the capital status of Spain, and the subsequent seat of the Government and the administration of the State, during a series of historical stages: the first of them between the years 1601 and 1606, when the capitality passed to Valladolid; then, from 1729 to 1733, in the so-called royal parish, the court moved to Sevilla by decision of Isabel de Farnesio, who sought cure for the depressive state of his husband, King Felipe V; ​ also during the War of Independence, the Supreme Board, opposed to José Bonaparte, established itself in Seville, in 111 808, and in 1810, as the Council of Regency, in Cadiz; finally, during the Civil War, even though Madrid was not ceased to be the capital of the Republic under article 5 of the Spanish Constitution of 1931, the Republican Government moved in November 1936 to Valencia and Barcelona in November of the following year, until the fall of Catalonia in February 1939, when a part of the Government led by its President, Juan Negrín, he moved to Alicante. The Government of the rebellious side, for its part, had been established in Burgos and, after the end of the war, the capital had been established there until 18 October 1939, when it had relocated to Madrid.

Symbols

Heraldic Shield of the Villa de Madrid, with the bear and the madroño

The symbols of the Madrid villa are the Carmesí flag of the Spanish municipalities and the traditional shield with the bear and the madroño, played with an old royal crown, according to the current regulations of Protocol and Ceremonial of the Madrid City Council. ​

Although the "bear and madroño" is always spoken, it used to be a bear. Also the madroño was not identified as such, but was a tree with red fruits, until the fruits of the madroño served to cure a plague that ravaged the city. Since then, the tree has been identified as wood. In the 16th century, we propose the improvement of the shield:

To the blazon of this Council, which carries a bear in a madroño in a white field, your Majesty is to grant to wear a crown inside the shield, or a blue border with seven stars of eight rays, in a sign of the clear and extended sky that this Villa covers

Petition by the Council of Madrid to Carlos I of Spain, granted by the monarch. 1548. ​

For a while the Madrid escudo had a dragon, although some experts point out that it was a winged nickel or a golden tap.

Among the antiquities that obviously declare the nobility and ancient foundation of this town, it was one that in this month of June 1569 years, by widening the Closed Door, brought it down, and was at the top of the door, on the canvas of the wall carved in Berrochan stone, a frightening and fierous dragon, which the Greeks brought by arms and arms they used on their flags, ...

Juan López de Hoyos, Spanish writer and humanist. The history and true relationship of the disease, the most joyful traffic and sumptuous funeral exequies of the serendiest queen of Spain Dona Isabel de Valois, our lady. 1,569

Since then, many shields in Madrid had dragons. The official shield of 1859 included a golden tap that looked like a dragon. ​

In 2004, the municipal corporation adopted a logo based on Madrid's villa shield, in light blue, online, which is used in internal and external communication documents.

Prehistory

Despite the fact that no human fossil remains have been found, a wide variety of useful materials have been found, especially in the environment of Arganda del Rey and Manzanares, which make it possible to prove the existence of human settlements on the river terraces in the place that the city now occupies. ​ The current city is located in territory that was occupied by the carpetan group at the time of Roman domination.

Roman and Visigoth times

Rome's conquest and colonization of the Iberian Peninsula, initially carried out as a Roman military maneuver in its long series of wars with Carthage, lasts almost two centuries, from the second single war to 27 BC, when they complete the pacification of the northern part of the territory and divide it into three provinces. ​ The region currently occupying Madrid would be located in the Tarraconense.

While it is possible that during the Roman period the territory of Madrid was only a rural region, benefiting from the situation of crossing roads and natural wealth, the finding of the remains of a basilica from the Hispanic-Visigodo period in the environment of the church of Santa María de la Almudena has ​ presented as evidence of the existence of an urban settlement during that period. Other archeological samples of the presence of a stable population in Madrid are found in the remains of two visiting necropolis, one in the former colony of the Count of Vallellano — Paseo de Extremadura, next to the Casa de Campo — and another in Tetuán de las Victorias. Inside the medieval center, a rather worn stone with legend was found, never completed and interpreted in several ways, but it could indicate the presence of a stable population already in the 7th century:

min. bokatus. outrage. prs. imo / et tertio. regno. dome. rvd. / mi. regvm. was dcxxxxv

Muslim era

Muslim Wall Dressing Next to Cuesta de la Vega

The first historical record of the existence of a stable settlement dates back to the Muslim era. ​ In the second half of the 9th century, the Emir of Córdoba Muhammad I (852-886) constructs ​ a fortress on a promontory by the river, ​ one of the many fortifications that it orders to build on the border territory of the Mark Media the triple purpose of monitoring the steps of the Sierra de Guadarrama and protecting Toledo from the razzias of the northern Christian kingdoms, to be a starting point for Muslim incursions into those kingdoms and to establish the authority of Córdoba in this region. The first news article written about Madrid was in the Cordoban chronicler Ibn Hayyan (987-1075), who, quoting another former chronicler, al-Razi (888-955), says:

Muhammad and at the time of his reign is owed beautiful works, many gestures, great triumphs and full care for the well-being of Muslims, caring for their borders, guarding their gaps, consolidating their extreme places and serving their needs. He was the one who ordered to build the castle of Esteras, to keep the crops of Medinaceli, standing on its northwestern side. And it was he who, for the people of the border of Toledo, built the castle of Talamanca, and the castle of Madrid and the castle of Peñahora. He often gathered news of brands and looked after what was happening there, sending people he trusted to check that they were okay. ​

Next to the fortress, it is developed, to the south and to the east, mainly, the village. This population is called Mağrīĭ (AFI [maʤ riː tˁ]) (in old Spanish Magerit (maʤ eæit), which could be an arabization of the name romance Matrice, "matrix", alluding to a stream of that name that was running along the primitive city, on the current street Segovia, ​ or be a hybrid between the Arabic word Mağra, meaning 'watercourse' or 'watercourse', and the suffix romance・-it・(< latín-etum), which indicates abundance; the meaning would therefore be 'abundant place in water', in reference to the various surface and underground streams that could be found on the city's site. ​

The most complete news about Muslim Madrid is given by geographer al-Himyari in the 15th century, who, citing older sources, says of this city that it was:

A noble city of al-Andalus, built by Emir Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman. From Madrid to the Maqida (Valdemaqueda?) Bridge, which was the land limit of Islam, there are 31 miles. In Madrid, there is a mud where pots are made that can be used to put on the fire for twenty years without being broken, and what is cooked on them is preserved without affecting the cold or the heat of the environment. Madrid Castle is one of the most powerful, built by the Emir Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman. Ibn Hayyan mentions in his history the moat that was dug outside the walls of Madrid, saying that a grave with a skeleton measuring 51 arms was found in it, that is, 102 palms (about 9 m), from the cushion of the head to the end of the feet. The cadí of Madrid, who came to the scene and watched him with several witnesses, produced a report, certifying him. ​

Remains of the Bone Tower, an ancient Islamic watchtower, in Eastern Square

The tradition that the primitive Hsin or Andalusian fortress occupied the site where the Christian Palace was later lifted and the current Royal Palace has been maintained over time. Many researchers have worked on this hypothesis, developing proposals to reconstruct the route of the old al-mudayna walls or citadel from this idea. However, there is no archeological or documentary evidence that the hsin was in that location, and nowadays scholars tend to think that the wall of the citadel passed through the current square separating the cathedral from Almudena from the Palace and therefore did not include the site of the Palace. The walled Andalusian city would therefore have risen in the hills bounded to the south by the hondonated San Pedro stream (now Segovia street), to the north by the Arenal stream (now Arenal street) and to the west by the ravine that ends on the Manzanares vega. Extramuros developed, south and west, a larger population that was surrounded in Christian times of a second wall.

From the various archeological works developed in the city since the mid-19th century onwards, remains such as: the arabic wall of the slope of la Vega, the atalaya of the square of Oriente and the remnants of a water trip of the Plaza de los Carros. Other remains of the wall, now missing, are known from the old plans of the city. The largest mosque, whose existence gave the population the character of a medina or city, occupied the place where the church of Santa María, which was overthrown in turn in the 19th century to widen the Street Major. This was already the main street in the city in Andalusian times. ​

In 1932, King Ramiro II, in his process of territorial conquest in the southern kingdom of Leon, attacked Madrid's Umayyad fortress, in his idea of conquering Toledo. But already occupied by al-Nasir, some time before, the fortresses of the right margin of Tajo, Ramiro was only able to dismantle the fortifications of Madrid and depredate its closest lands, from which it brought many people. Madrid's walls were reinforced after this attack.

During the caliphal period, Madrid belonged to the cora de Guadalajara. After the disintegration of this caliphate, the city became part of the Tamiph kingdom of Toledo.

In the Arab Madrid, he was born in the 10th century Maslama al-Mayriti, called "the Andalusian Euclides", a notable astronomer and founder of a mathematical school in Córdoba. ​

Christian Conquest and Establishment of Capitality

Church of San Nicolás de los Servitas, the oldest in the historic center of Madrid. ​

With the fall of the Taino kingdom of Toledo at the hands of Alfonso VI of Leon, the city was taken by Christian forces in 1085 without resistance, probably through capitulation. The city and its stronghold were integrated into the kingdom of Castile as realm territories. Christians replace Muslims in the occupation of the central part of the city, leaving the peripheral or slums, which in the previous period were inhabited by the Villa's Aljama. There was also a Jewish woman, who was first placed around the current Royal Theater, and later where the current ​ Almudena Cathedral, although late romantic tradition placed her in the environment of what would later be a Lavapiés neighborhood, which is impossible because in the Middle Ages it was an inhospitable and uninhabited area, and also there have never been any extra-wall judges from the cities.

Over the next century, Madrid continues to be struck by the peninsula's new Muslim powers, the Almoracids, who set the city on fire in 1109, and the pillows, who put it under siege in 1977. The Christian victory of Las Navas de Tolosa definitely alies the Muslim influence of the center of the peninsula.

From this time came two prominent religious events that mark the personality development of Madrid's popular Christianity: the "discovery" of the image of the Virgen de la Almudena and the life of Isidro Labrador, which would later be canonized. ​ the city is flourishing and is entitled a villa in 1123. ​ following the usual resettlement scheme in Castilla, Madrid is the council, head of a community of villa and land, the community of villa and land in Madrid. The city's government falls to all Madrid residents of the same range, gathered in an open council until 1346, King Alfonso XI implements the regiment, in which only representatives of the local oligarchy, the councilors, rule the city. In 1152, King Alfonso VII established the boundaries of the community of village and land between the Guadarrama and Jarama rivers. In 1188, a representative from Madrid participated for the first time in the Courts of Castile. In 1202, Alfonso VIII granted him his first municipal charter, which regulated the functioning of the council, whose powers were expanded in 1222 by Fernando III el Santo.

Former Alcázar of Madrid at the beginning of the 16th century

Despite Madrid's support for Pedro I, the rulers of Trastámara's house would later often reside in the village due to the abundance and quality of their hunting cots, which they were very fond of. Even before, the book of Montería by Alfonso XI noted: "Madrid, a good place of pork and bear," and possibly from that characteristic derived the shield that the Madrid-based Houthis brought to the battle of the Navas of Toulouse. ​ Later, a prolonged conflict between the City Hall and the Church ended with a pastureland-sharing agreement for this and tree feet for that, so that a tree was incorporated into the shield next to the bear or constosa and the seven stars of the church same-name relationship. ​ tree identification with the madroño is darker, beyond homophony with the name of the city.

The Castile Courts meet for the first time in Madrid in 1309 under the reign of Fernando IV and then in 1329, 1339, 1391, 1393, 1419 and twice in 1435. From the unification of the kingdoms of Spain under a common crown, the courts were convened in Madrid more frequently.

In the war of the Communities, at the head of his councilor Juan de Zapata, Madrid joins the uprising against Carlos I (1520) ​, taking the palace on August 31, 1520 (see: Site of the Alcázar of Madrid). However, after the defeat of the villagers in Villalar, the town was besieged and occupied by the royal troops in mid-May 1521. Despite all this, Charles I's successor Felipe II decided to install the court in Madrid on February 13, 1561 (459 years ago). ​

The establishment of capital in Madrid would be decisive for the evolution of the city and would make the country's avatars and the monarchy, to some extent, influence the destiny of the city. Except for a brief period between 1601 and 1606, when the court moves to Valladolid, the capitality will be substantial to Madrid. One famous expression pointed to that identity: "only Madrid is cut", which, conceptually, was also understood in reverse: "Madrid is just court." ​

View of Madrid from the west, opposite the Vega gate, by Anton Van der Wyngaerde (called "Antonio de las Viñas" in Spain) in 1562, commissioned by Felipe II to gather views of his cities. The banks of the Manzanares, crossed by the predecessors of the Segovia bridge (first of all), and the Toledo bridge (further south, right), are visible in the foreground, and will be built monumentally years later. The most outstanding building, to the north (left), is the Alcazar, which is part of the walled circuit and which will suffer several fires until the fateful of 1734 that will almost completely destroy it, being replaced by the current Royal Palace. Among the farmhouse are the church towers (left to right: San Gil, San Juan, Santiago, San Salvador, San Miguel de los Octoes, San Nicolás, Santa María, San Justo, San Pedro, the Bishop's Chapel, San Andrés and, extra-walls, San Francisco), which still do not show the profile of domes and chapitels that will characterize them in the following centuries. There is an artisanal skins treatment facility outside the walls and above the river: Pozacho's Tenerias. The recent court installation led to increased fiscal pressure on individuals by taxing the gift of accommodation, which produced all kinds of resistance, including the construction of houses to malice. ​

View of the Royal Alcázar and environment of the Segovia Bridge, anonymous, c. 1670

With the establishment of the court in Madrid, its population begins to grow significantly. To the royal bureaucracy, the members of the court and all the people necessary for their livelihood, they unite in disinherited and wanted from all over the Spanish Empire. In 1625, Felipe IV tore down the city wall, already surpassed, and built the last one near Madrid. This fence, built exclusively for fiscal reasons (a tax of portority) will limit the growth of the city until the 19th century. Government tasks are centered in the Royal Alcázar, a set of buildings located on the land that will later occupy the Royal Palace and the Orient Square. At the same time, the surface of another palace is increased at the far east of the city, beyond the fence. This is the Palace of the Good Retiro, which was built by the Catholic Kings (who also transferred to their vicinity the monastery of San Jerónimo el Real, previously located near the Manzanares, part of the current Prince Pio station), from which their gardens, the Salon of the Kingdom and the Ballroom, known, the latter, as the Casón del Buen Retiro and used by the Prado Museum.

Illustration and neoclassicism

Arrival of Carlos III — nicknamed "The Best Mayor of Madrid" — ​ to the city (1759), oil of Lorenzo Quirós

The change in dynasty would bring important changes for the city. The monarchs of the new dynasty found it to be a dark, narrow, mass-populated population, with no sewerage and pestilential systems. ​ Bourbons consider the need to equate Madrid with other European capitals. The burning of the Madrid Palace in 1734 (a disgraceful event that causes the disappearance of one third of the royal collection of paintings) led to the construction of the Royal Palace. ​ The works lasted until 1755 and was not occupied until the reign of Charles III. Bridges, hospitals, parks, fountains, buildings for scientific use, sewerage ordinances and other performances were promoted by the latter monarch (who is called the "best mayor of Madrid"), with the collaboration of architects and urban planners of high professional and artistic standing: Francesco Sabatini, Ventura Rodríguez and Juan de Villanueva, among others.

Alcalá street in the middle of the 18th century by Antonio Joli

The project of the Prado Hall, on the outskirts of the city, between the whole of the Good Retiro and the fence, is probably the most important and has left a more important legacy to the city: the walks of Prado and Recoletos, the fountains of Neptune, Cibeles and Apollo, the Royal Botanical Garden, the Royal Astronomical Observatory or the building originally intended to host the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, although it would finally be assigned to the then newly established Prado Museum. However, the relationship of the "mayor king" with his subjects-neighbors was not always good; several measures of his modernization program were met violently during the 1766 Esquilache riot, although more complex causes also came together. ​

The city is seen from the southwest, and something different from how Wyngaerde drew two hundred years earlier. The Alcázar de los Austrias has been replaced by the Borbonic Palace of Felipe V, the Segovia bridge (on the left) is the current one, and the profile of the huge dome of San Francisco el Grande dominates the rest of the churches of the village. To the north (to the left) is the Prince Pio's "mountain", where the shooting of May 3, 1808, immortalized in Goya's painting, took place.

Ensanche and the Industrial Age

May 3 in Madrid of Goya

The uprising of the people of Madrid against the French troops on May 2, 1808 marks the beginning of the war of independence. ​ King José Bonaparte made reforms in the capital, and his orders to tear down convents to make squares, by which he acquires the moniker of Pepe Plazuelas. ​ The demise of war forced him twice fleeing Madrid but the occupation of the city resulted in the destruction of valuable compounds, such as the Palacio del Buen Retiro.

The depreciation was a dramatic change in the real estate system, as well as concentrating a large art collection, the Museum of Trinidad, which in 1872 was dissolved and its funds were added to those of the Prado Museum (created during the reign of Ferdinand VII in the building intended for the Science Cabinet). It also involves the creation in Madrid of the Central University, which will retain the name of Complutense as it comes from the physical and legal transfer of the cloister and students from the renowned University of Alcalá to the nearby capital.

St. Bernardo's Street in the Mid-19th Century by David Roberts

During the 19th century, the population of the city continues to grow. ​ the perception of changes that will make the pre-industrial city disappear stimulates the emergence of a "madrileñista" literature, a custom nature, such as Ramón de Mesonero Romanos. The statistical and all kinds of information collected by Pascual Madoz in his Geographic-Statistical-Historical Dictionary for all of Spain was especially comprehensive for Madrid, whose article has a very significant heading: "Madrid: audience, province, province, province, province, vicaria, party and villa." ​

In 1868, the fence of Felipe IV finally collapsed, and the city can grow, in principle in an orderly way, thanks to the Castro Plan and the realization of the ensanches. ​ will be the opportunity of fabulous businesses, which enriched José de Salamanca and Mayol, Marquis of Salamanca, who named the new neighborhood created to the east of what will become the central hub the city (the promenade of the Castellana, extension of the Prado promenade). It establishes a modern water supply system (Canal de Isabel II) and establishes the railway communication that will make Madrid the center of the radio communications network, which also leaves its mark on the urban plot (Delicias station, Atocha station and Principe Pio station).

Restoration

In the first thirty years of the 20th century, the population of Madrid reached more than one million people. ​ New villages such as Las Ventas, Tetuán or El Carmen welcomed the newcomer proletariado, while in the ensanches the Madrid bourgeoisie was in place. These transformations promoted the idea of the linear city of Arturo Soria. Parallel to the opening of the Gran Vía, in order to decongest the old town, the metro opened in 1919. ​ During the reign of Alfonso XIII, real pecunium land was set aside, north-west of the Royal Palace, to found the University City.

Second Republic and Civil War

Central Fruit and Vegetable Market in Legazpi Square (1935)

The municipal elections of April 12, 1931 gave a great triumph to the Republican-Socialist conjunction in Madrid, which won 69.2% of the ​ votes (90,630 votes for the conjunction and 31,616 for the monarchists, ​ which resulted in 15 Socialist and 15 Republican councilors against the ruling party 20 monarchical councilors). Pedro Rico, from the Federal Democratic Republican Party, was elected mayor by the municipal corporation. The Republican triumph in Madrid and most of the provincial capitals meant the decomposition of the monarchy and the advent of the Second Spanish Republic, just two days after the election. The Republican committee assumed power on the 14th of the afternoon, and proclaimed the Republic at the Royal Post Office at Puerta del Sol, the seat of the Ministry of the Interior, in front of an infuriated crowd. ​ the Constitution of the Republic promulgated in 1931 was the first to legislate on the capitality of the state, explicitly establishing it in Madrid. ​ one of the first actions of the new government was to cede to the government the town of Madrid the Casa de Campo, until then real property; opening it to the public for the first time on May 1, 1931 at a massive country party. ​

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War took place in Melilla in the mid-afternoon of Friday, July 17, and was known in Madrid in the following hours. Still on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th, it kept the city a certain normality. After the badly planned crushing of the rebellion in Madrid at the Mountain Barracks and the Carabanchel barracks, in which loyal elements of the Army and the Security Forces were aided by the popular militias (organized since late 1934 by the Communist Party of Spain under the name of Military Armed Workers and Peasants), which the Government authorized the delivery of weapons. From that moment on, an indiscriminate repression began not only against those who had participated in the rebellion, but against those who, not sharing the political ideas of the Popular Front, were considered "disaffected by the Regime." Numerous interrogation, detention, and torture centers (the "Czechs") emerged, from which many detainees only left for "walks," and later their corpses appeared around the city. There were numerous "prison sacks" in which the so-called surveillance militias entered jails (San Anton, Sales, etc.) with their lists of people to be removed, "removed" the prisoners on the lists and shot them outside the city. The massacres at Paracuellos in Jarama and Torrejón de Ardoz in November/December 1936 were particularly high, with the most substantiated estimates of between 2000 and 3000 victims. Countless private homes were also seized, and the same fate was found at the headquarters of right-wing political parties. Churches were robbed and torched, with irreparable artistic and cultural losses, and by official government decree of August 1936, all churches in Republican Spain and therefore also in Madrid were finally closed.

Militarized as the People's Army of the Republic in 1937, the resistance of the militias, led by the Madrid Defense Board, manages to stop the offensive during the Madrid Battle in the western neighborhoods of the city, especially in the area around the Argüelles neighborhood and the University City, where the front stabilized, and which was wiped out in the conflict, losing in addition to the very buildings of the University so valuable as the Real Siege of the Moncloa, which included the palace of the same name (the current is a post-war reconstruction) and the Casa de Velazquez. ​

The city would never again suffer another ground assault during the war, but it was punished by artillery fire and aerial bombardments, first in the history of a capital, in the image that other Europeans will suffer during World War II. The operations of the aircraft of the rebel side, supported by apparatuses from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, ​ provoke in four months, from 7 November 1936 to 9 March 1937, 1,490 deaths, 430 missing and 3,502 injured. ​ aside from causing many damage to emblematic buildings, like those that affected, from 14 to 17 November 1936, the Prado Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Cajal Institute, the National Archeological Museum and the Liria Palace. ​ Aviation was also used to frighten the enemy. ​

The resistance of Madrid was exalted by the propaganda in favor of the Republican cause with the slogan "They won't pass!" and mocked at the end of the War, with Celia Gámez's song "We have passed by now!", but the situation forces the institutions and the government, as well as the civilian population, to be evacuated to the regions of the interior and the Levant. The end of the war was especially chaotic in Madrid, with the violent confrontation between armed units of the Communist Party and those loyal to the Madrid Junta de Defensa (Defense Board), led by General Miaja, Colonel Segismundo Casado and the socialist Julián Besteiro. Armed clashes on the streets of the city caused numerous casualties and resulted in bloody reprisals and firing by both sides. Nationalist troops entered the city in the last two days of March and the first of April 1939, with massive public celebrations.

With the end of the war on April 1, 1939, Madrid is suffering from the Franco repression; in july of that year, count Galeazzo Ciano, minister of foreign affairs of fascist Italy, writes in his diary that there are between 200 and 250 daily executions. ​

Franco dictatorship

View of Moncloa Square with the Ministry of Air and the Arc of Victory, one of the symbols of Franco in the capital.

At the end of the war, the city continues its unstoppable spatial growth while healing the wounds that the fighting had left on the city, especially on its western façade. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards migrate from the countryside to the city, ​ Madrid (along with Barcelona or Bilbao) is one of the cities that benefit most from these population movements. From June 5, 1948, the process of annexation to Madrid of up to 13 neighboring municipalities, which ends on July 31, 1954 (Aravaca, Barajas, Canillas, Canillejas, Chamartín de la Rosa, Fuencarral, Hortaleza, El Pardo, Vallecas, Vicálvaro, Villaverde, Carabalo anchel Alto and Carabanchel Bajo, with the extension of 66 km² to the current 607 km² and gain about 300 000 new inhabitants. ​ Urban disorder was the norm: chabolist villages grew up (as Luis Martín-Santos masterfully described in his novel Tiempo de silencia), while the historical center was subject to speculation, allowing the demolition of buildings of artistic or traditional value to be replaced by others of modern aesthetics, buildings of innovative architecture like the suspended Torres de Colón are built. In some cases the architectural interventions have a character to mark the political presence, trying to promote the concept of Franco's "imperial Madrid", such as in the Moncloa area, where the Victory Arch and the Ministry of Air are raised, in a neo-herrerian style, or the Trade Unions House (currently Ministry of Health), building of the Vertical Trade Unions.

The Gran Via in 1965, then called José Antonio Avenue

The Metropolitan Area Management Plan, approved in 1963, which was compounded by the demographic explosion of the capital, began the tendency to divert the urban population concentration of Madrid to metropolitan municipalities such as Alcorcón, Alcobendas, Coslada, Fuenlabrada, Getafe, Leganés, Móstoles, San Sebastián de los Reyes, San Fernando de Henares and Torrejón de Ardoz, which become sleeping cities. In 1973, the first tranches of the M-30, the city's first beltway, opened.^{[appointment required]}

Transition and Democracy

After the death of dictator Franco, Madrid was one of the main stages during the period of the Transition. ​ The first months of 1977 were marked by political and social unrest, with strikes, demonstrations and violent counter-demonstrations with deadly victims. Other serious events included the two kidnappings by the GRAPO and the 1977 Atocha massacre, which resulted in the murder by members of the far right of the labor lawyers in an office on this street. His mass burial, prior to the legalization of PCE was narrated cinematographically in Seven Days of January, by Juan Antonio Bardem. With the consolidation of the democratic regime, the 1978 Constitution confirms Madrid as the capital of democratic Spain in whose support the mass demonstrations would take place following the unraveling coup d'état of 23 February 1981.

Enrique Tierno Galván and Ramón Tamames attend a demonstration (1979)

In 1979, the first democratic municipal elections took place since the Second Republic in which the UCD list with José Luis Álvarez at the helm was the most voted, but without an absolute majority. He was elected mayor of the city Enrique Tierno Galván, thanks to the PSOE's pact with the PCE. During this mayor's office, the town hall regenerated the city from an urban and social point of view. What was Franco's dying capital became Europe's most important cultural core. La Movida madrileña was an example of this pujanza. There were also significant improvements in the quality of life of the city's residents. After the death of Enrique Tierno Galván, he was replaced by Juan Barranco of the PSOE with support from the PCE. The city then moved to more conservative positions with Augustín Rodríguez Sahagún of the CDS and José María Álvarez del Manzano of the PP. Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón of the PP was named mayor of the city after his term as head of the government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Finally, on December 27, 2011, Ana Botella became the first mayor in the history of the municipality, following the appointment of her predecessor as Minister of Justice of Spain.

The democratic election of mayors definitely brings great benefits to the city, as mayors were forced to improve the quality of life of citizens, to whom they respond (Franco mayors were directly elected by Franco): construction of libraries, sports facilities, health centers; elimination of chabolist nuclei; cleaning of the Manzanares River; road improvement; closure of the M-30 in the north, burial of the M-30 in the Manzanares area; construction of new bypass roads (M-40, M-45, M-50), while increasing the capacity of access roads (converted into motorways or duplicated with toll motorways); parking regulation (ORA) in the interior of the city, which reaches the limit of the M-30, with repeated neighborhood protests, all in order to absorb and regulate the growing traffic. The role of large real estate companies has been decisive in marking the new urbanistic style in Madrid. The new neighborhoods are centered around the block closed to the outside, with a core consisting of green areas, swimming pools, children's playgrounds, sports pitches, etc. This new urbanistic style has been shaping a new social concept in which the street is no longer understood as a place of coexistence but as a mere element of transit. People in Madrid now tend to gather more in bars, private homes, parks, or even parking lots, with previously unknown phenomena like botellón appearing.

Remains of the Islamist attacks of 11 March 2004

On the morning of 11 March 2004, the city's suburban transport network was the scene of the attacks of 11 March 2004 claimed by Al-Qaeda, the most serious terrorist attack in Spain and the European Union, which killed 192 people and injured more than 1900 ​. On March 11, 2007, just three years later, the kings of Spain opened a memorial to the victims of the attack on Charles V Square. ​ On December 30, 2006, ETA flew the car park at the T4 terminal of Madrid-Barajas, which killed two people. Since the attacks on Luis Carrero Blanco (1973) and the street bar of Correo (1974, in front of the General Security Directorate), Madrid has suffered much of the activity of this terrorist gang, as well as that of other groups of all stripes, such as the ultra-right, the GRAPO or Islamic terrorism.

In the 21st century, the city continues to tackle new challenges: the maintenance of the population within the urban center (Madrid is the municipality of Spain where the increase in the price of housing has been the highest); expansion of the city (with the creation of new neighborhoods through the Urban Action Plan: Montecarmelo, La Peseta, Arroyo del Fresno, Valdebeas, Las Tablas, Sanchinarro, Ensanche de Vallecas...); remodeling of the historic center; absorption and integration of the immigration coming to the city.

The municipality, which has an area of 605.77 km², ​ according to the municipal register for 2017 of the INE with 3 182 981 inhabitants and a density of 5254.44 inhabitants/km².

Graph of the demographic evolution of Madrid between 1842 and 2017

Law population according to population censuses of the INE. ​      Population according to the 2017 municipal register. ​

Between 1877 and 1887 the term of the municipality grows because it incorporates La Alameda. It also grows between 1940 and 1950 because it incorporates Aravaca, Barajas de Madrid, Canillas, Canillejas, Carabanchel Alto, Carabanchel Bajo, Chamartín de la Rosa, Fuencarral, Hortaleza, El Pardo, Vallecas and Vicálvaro, and between 1950 and 1960 it incorporates Villaalvaro green.

Population

People at Puerta del Sol

Madrid's population has been experiencing a significant increase since it became capital. This increase is particularly significant during the period from 1940 to 1970, when it nearly tripled its population because of the large amount of internal immigration. ​ This rapid growth and lack of urban planning led to the organization of sub-housing centers and residential areas, mainly in southern districts, where public services would not arrive many years later. ​

Since the 1970s, this increase has slowed in favor of municipalities in the metropolitan area and Madrid has even begun to lose population. Since 1995, population growth has again been positive, mainly due to external immigration. ​ According to the available data, as of 1 January 2019, ​ the population of Madrid was 3 275 195, compared with 2 938 723 of the 2001 census.

Population movements

Birth

In 2017, there were 29,032 births in Madrid, 14,916 men and 14,116 women. The birth rate is 9 points. The majority of births were by mothers aged 35-40 years, accounting for 34% of all births; Mothers aged 30-35 followed him with 32% of the total and 25-30 with 13%. Mothers over 40 years of age accounted for 12% of all births and those under 25 years of age for 8%. The average age of mothers was 33 years. 45% of mothers were unmarried at the time of delivery

Mortality

In 2017, there were 28,594 deaths in Madrid.

Immigration

According to the 2019 census ​ Madrid's foreign population is 462,343 out of a total of 3,238,191, or 14,12%. The districts with the most immigrant population are Centro with 22.81%, Usera with 22.07%, Villaverde with 19.50% and Carabanchel with 19.37%. By contrast, the districts with the lowest immigrant population are Retiro with 7.75%, Fuerrral-El Pardo with 8.50%, Moratalaz with 9.36% and Barajas with 9.45%.

Metropolitan Area

Aerial view of Madrid

Alongside the city of Madrid, a series of urban centers are formed that establish a relationship of interdependence between each other. In the case of Madrid, interdependence clearly departs to a dependence towards the center of the area, Madrid, which is known as a metropolitan area dependent on its core, as opposed to conurbation, in which the direction of dependency is less clear, with greater interdependence in both ways. According to the modern concept of metropolitan area, ​ regions of different intensity are classified in their urban relations: metropolitan urban area, metropolitan suburban area, peri-urban expansion area and peri-urban diffusion area. There would be another level of relationship, the area of influence of Madrid, which would reach the interior areas of the neighboring autonomous communities of Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León. Each level of interdependence is stricter than the next, and the idea of metropolitan suburban area can be assimilated with the idea of metropolitan area defined by the Universidad Complutense. ​ The population of this area in 2004 would be 5 045 947. ​ ​

Gentilicio

The nationality of the inhabitants of Madrid is "Madrid" or "matritense." ​ Historically, however, the people of Madrid have also been nicknamed "cats" because, according to legend, the conquest of the city by the troops of Alfonso VI at the end of the 11th century was carried out by the assault of the wall by which the Castelite troops climbed lanas. ​ other legends point out, however, that this appeal of "cats" was given to the citizens of Madrid in the Middle Ages for their great ability to climb bare-handed walls and cliffs.

Historical evolution of the Madrid Plan

Plano de Madrid by Pedro Teixeira (1656) Mantua Carpetanorum sive Matritum Urbs Regia.

Plano of 1762, with the fence of Felipe IV. This wall would not be torn down until the mid-19th century.

The old town, originated in the Muslim Medina, arises from a strategic location (control of a Manzanares fence) that will determine a series of topographic limitations: the arrangement of the original hamlet in the elevated areas above the river and the gorge of Segovia street, where the artisanal and the mozarab and jewish neighborhoods (transmuted into morería and juderia with the 11th century Christian occupation) will be established on the north side.

When Felipe II made Madrid the capital of Spain, he agreed with the authorities of the Villa to establish a so-called Loading of Bedroom, which was not exactly the same as the previous gift of room, since it was a permanent, non-transitory burden that the Madrid authorities agreed with the king, in exchange for the latter establishing the capitality in Madrid, According to this burden, those who had a home to more than one floor, they would give up one of them to host the large number of high-ranking officials and second-ranking courtiers who would arrive in the new capital of an important empire. The city authorities thought about the economic advantages that capitality would bring, but the people of Madrid, not especially happy, started building what were called houses to malice, one-story, so as not to suffer the inconveniences of the Cargo. As a result, the urban center quickly spread and in about forty years (in the early 17th century) reached the fence that would later be built (north to the so-called boulevards and east to the stream of the Castellana fountain, i.e. the promenade of Recoletos and El Prado) and that would last practically until the 19th century. grow up in height.

Urban enlargements were necessarily to be made to the east, because of the obstacle of the slopes on the river. The larger streets that lead into the Prado served as a prestigious space, as a stage for courtesan processions and stops. The approach of the Prado in time of Carlos III met the same criteria, determined the future road axis and urban expansion of the Paseo de la Castellana.

The rapid expansion of the sixteenth century became so rapid that it left no room for the creation of places. It was at the beginning of the 19th century, with King Joseph I, who had the intention of equating Madrid with other European capitals that already had real museums open to the public. With that institution he intended to retain the works of art that his brother Napoleon and certain French soldiers were taking to France. The museum as such was not founded; it was his successor on the Spanish throne, Fernando VII of Spain, who boarded his creation and inaugurated it in 1819, as the Prado Museum. ​ The people of Madrid dubbed him The "King of Prisoners", since he opened many places in the capital to the detriment of churches and convents, which were torn down. The most important was the square of Orient, in front of the Royal Palace.

After a few centuries when growth was contained in the old town, increasing the density of occupation, giving rise, among other things, to the model of the twitter, well described by Madrid's custom), the municipality, driven by private promoters (Marquis de Salamanca), proposed an ambitious urban expansion.

Arturo Soria Linear City Project

Beyond the boulevards that opened when it fell from the fence of the 17th century, the extension of the second half of the 19th century was built, projected by Carlos María de Castro reaching the urban area until then known as the promenade of Ronda, which was running through the current Queen Victoria, Raimundo Fernández Villaverde, Joaquín Costa, Francisco Silvela, Doctor Esquerdo, Reina Cristina, Reina Cristina, Infanta Isabel, Ronda de Atocha, Ronda de Valencia and Ronda de Toledo. From 1878 to 1910, expropriation procedures for the construction of the Almudena cemetery in the land of the then village of Vicálvaro, which is why it loses part of its territory in favor of the capital, when it disaggregates the so-called "orchards of Vicalvaro" (the neighborhoods of La Elipa and Las Ventas del Espíritu Santo). In the areas that remain outside the extension radius, spontaneous nuclei of more or less precarious self-construction housing appear on the city's access roads.

Housing blocks in Canillas, one of the municipalities absorbed by Madrid throughout the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Linear City of Arturo Soria is planned in its northeastern area. His ambitious plan did not come to an end at all ends, and his integration with nature was definitely undermined by the urbanization of all intermediate spaces, both to the urban center and to the outside. The building was also expanded in most of the plots, although some still look the same as at the beginning of the century. It is also one of the few boulevards that have been preserved. ​

Since the end of the 19th century the historic center suffered some minor alterations, the most significant intervention being the opening of the Gran Via, which together with areas of the Castellana (Nuevos Ministries, AZCA) form "screen" axes that isolate both sides of the lower building height and less width of the road.

The current urban periphery corresponds with outer space to the so-called "central almond" defined by the M-30, which corresponds for the most part to the former municipalities absorbed after the Civil War. In addition to the historical helmets of these populations, the new residential areas created in the old agricultural land are: or slum areas subsequently rebuilt (Orcasitas, El Pozo del Tio Raimundo); or planning zones of the 1950s (San Blas); or private promotions of urbanistic speculation of the 1970s (Pilar neighborhood), which have sometimes been described as "vertical chabolism". The interstitial spaces are occupied by productive use zones or public equipment, which in most cases had to settle for the scarce soil that was free from speculation, in the absence of planning with greater perspective. ​

Architecture

Cuchilleros Arc on San Miguel Cava, next to Plaza Mayor.

Most of Madrid's tourist sites are located inside the so-called central almond (the area surrounding the M-30), mainly in the districts of Centro, Salamanca, Chamberí, Retiro and Arganzuela. Madrid's nerve center is Puerta del Sol. In it, opposite the Royal Post Office, is kilometer 0, the starting point of the numbering of all the country's radio roads. The reason is that when the numbering was made, in the 19th century, the Royal Post Office was the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, equivalent to the current Ministry of the Interior, which had the powers in this area. ​ 10 streets are born.

Alcalá Street leads from the Puerta del Sol to the northeast of the city. From there you can reach Plaza de Cibeles, where you will find emblematic places such as the fountain of Cibeles, the Banco de España, and the Palacio de Comunicación (Antonio Palacios, 1918), the current headquarters of Madrid City Council. Then the street reaches the Plaza de la Independencia, where the door of Alcalá is located and an entrance to the Retiro Park, where emblematic sites such as the Cristal Palace are located next to the pond (1887, Ricardo Velazquez Bosco). In the immediate vicinity of the M-30 you will come across the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, by José Espeliús, a late example of the Neomudéjar style (1929). Since the beginning of 2011, kilometer 0 has been moved by the Community and the Madrid City Council, starting point for the numbering of all the country's roads.

Plaza de España: on the left, the Torre de Madrid; in the center, the monument to Miguel de Cervantes; and on the right, the Spanish Building.

Night view of the Royal Palace and Bailén Street.

Calle Mayor leads to Plaza Mayor, built and rebuilt in successive interventions of the "Master of Works" of Madrid, the most present architects in Madrid, such as Juan Gómez de Mora (1619) or Juan de Villanueva (1790); continuing through the so-called Madrid of the Austrias—in reference to the dynasty of the Austrias—is finally reaching Calle Bailén, near the cathedral of Almudena, where various projects were carried out from the 18th century (Ventura Rodríguez) until the one that finally was executed, Fernando Chueca Goitia and Carlos Sidro, winners of the contest 1950 (the Neorromanic crypt, the oldest and most valuable part of the ensemble, is from the end of the 19th century, is the author of Francisco de Cubas); and the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande (Francisco Cabezas and Francesco Sabatini, 1784).

Near this point are the ruins of the Muslim Wall and Bone Tower of the old fortress of Mayrīt, as well as the later Christian wall. In this environment you will find some of the most beautiful landscaped areas of the city, such as the Campo del Moro and the Gardens of Sabatini. Just to the west are Casa de Campo and Parque Madrid Río, crossed by the bridges of Segovia (Juan de Herrera) and Toledo (Pedro de Ribera) of the streets of the same name. In the second, later, there is the door of Toledo, by Antonio López Aguado.

Debod Temple, Transported Stone by Stone from Egypt

From there, Calle d'Bailén leads to Plaza de España, which is the largest square in Spain, with its monument to Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish and Torre de Madrid buildings and the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple moved from stone to stone to Spain as a thanks for the help offered in the construction of the Aswan Dam. Also on this square is Madrid's Gran Vía, which will advance to the north, leaving the Malasaña neighborhood, an important nightlife and cultural activity, crossing with the streets of Carmen and Preciados in Plaza de Callao and then with Calle Montera—all three coming from the Puerta del Sol. At this point, Malasaña makes way for the Chueca neighborhood, with an alternative environment. The Gran Via will finally end when it crosses Calle Alcalá.

The street of Arenal arrives at the Teatro Real (Antonio López Aguado y Custodio Moreno, 1850), in the Plaza de Ópera, continuing to the Plaza de Oriente, where the Royal Palace is located (Filippo Juvara and Juan Bautista Sachetti, 1738-1764).

Atocha

The streets of Correo, Carretas and Espoz y Mina leave south towards the district of Las Letras. In this area you will find many cocktail bars and pubs, especially around the Huertas, Atocha and Plaza de Santa Ana streets. This area ends in the vicinity of Emperor Carlos V's roundabout, next to the Ministry of Agriculture (Ricardo Velázquez Bosco) and the iconic Atocha Station, by engineer and architect Alberto de Palacio (also author of the Vizcaya Bridge), expanded in the 1990s by Rafael Moneo.

White Towers of Sáenz de Oiza

The San Jerónimo race departs southeast, crossing the squares of Canalejas and de las Cortes — next to the Palace of the Courts — and going to the so-called Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Triangle on the landscaped Paseo del Prado. Not far from here you will find the Astronomical Observatory of El Retiro (Juan de Villanueva), the Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha and the Panthéon des Hombres Ilustres (Fernando Arbós and Tremanti). This is also where you will find the church of San Jerónimo el Real, the Hotel Ritz, the Palacio de la Bolsa, Enrique María Repullés, and the Royal Spanish Academy.

On the same Paseo del Prado you will find the fountain of Neptuno, the place of victory celebrations of the football club Atletico de Madrid (in rivalry with those of Real Madrid, which are celebrated in the football club of Cibeles). This street continues to the north as the Paseo de Recoletos (Paseo de Recoletos), where the National Library (Francisco Jareño), the Towers of Colón (Antonio Lamela) and an underground cultural center under the Jardines del Discovery (Gardens of Discovery) are located in the space occupied by the former Casa de la Moneda (which was also the work of Jareño), in whose exterior the Monument The discovery of America, of Joaquín Vaquero Turcios, the Monument to Colón, of Arturo Mélida and Jerónimo Suñol, and the flag of Spain largest in the country, with an area of about 300 square meters and a mast of 50 meters in height. At this point, it renames itself on Paseo de la Castellana, becomes one of the most important roads in the capital and reaches its northern end. The underground passage that is at its inception, next to Plaza de Colón, has recently been^[when?] subjected to a lofty renovation by the Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza (Pritzker Prize winner in 1992) to turn him into the City Council's Center for Tourism and Cultural Information. In their final stretch are the business areas of AZCA and Cuatro Torres Business Area, which contain some of the highest buildings in the country, including the first four (the Four Towers). In the first one, one of the most outstanding works of contemporary architecture in Madrid, the Tower of the Bank of Bilbao (today BBVA), by architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza, also author of another of the milestones of this period: the Torres Blancas building.

Skyscraper

A View of the Four Torres Business Area Complex Skyscrapers

Although Madrid has never been a city that stands out for its skyscrapers, during the 20th century, especially with the construction of Gran Via, the first buildings were erected, which, although they could not be considered skyscrapers, were outstanding buildings. It is not until 1953 when the first skyscraper was built in Madrid, the Spanish building and in 1957 it was surpassed the Torre de Madrid. In the 1980s, the AZCA skyscrapers, such as the Picasso Tower and the Torrespaña telecommunications tower, were lifted, although it was not usually considered a skyscraper. During the 21st century the Titania Tower (104 meters, erected on the site of the destroyed Windsor Tower) was built in AZCA; and in Paseo de la Castellana, the business park Cuatro Torres Business Area was built, a complex of four skyscrapers over 200 meters high, the four highest in Spain.

Churches

Madrid has a considerable number of churches, mostly Catholic.

Palaces

In Madrid there are many properties considered palaces, including several residences of the Spanish royalty. ​

Urban sculpture

Source of Cibeles, one of the iconic images of Madrid. ​

The streets of Madrid are a true museum of outdoor sculpture. Since the 18th century, the Hall of the Prado was decorated with an iconographic program of monumental sources with classic references: the Alcachofa fountain, the Cuatro Fuentes, the Neptune fountain, the Apollo fountain and the Cibeles fountain, all designed by Ventura Rodríguez. In the Plaza de Oriente a series of Spanish kings are exhibited from the visigodos and the various medieval Christian kingdoms, which were brought down from the corniche of the Royal Palace of Madrid where they had previously been placed, as a result, according to a version, of a prescient dream of Queen Isabel de Farnesio, in which he saw the statues come down, which he interpreted as a fall of the monarchy. The other version says that the reason was the fundamental problems that were seen to cause their considerable weight, so they were replaced by lighter ornaments. Other of the statues are preserved in the Sabatini Gardens, in Retiro Park, in the Kingdoms' Salon (former Army Museum), on Burgos' Paseo del Espolón and in Toledo.

Eduardo Chillida's stranded mermaid at the Museum of Outdoor Sculpture in Castellana. ​

Following the Prado Hall, on Paseo de la Castellana you will also find notable statues, such as that of Colón, that of Emilio Castelar (by Mariano Benlliure, a prolific sculptor who has a lot of work exhibited in Madrid, in streets, buildings, and several tombs in the Pantheon of Hombres Ilustres (Ilustres Men), the Mano de Fernando Botero (a marble bucket of Macael -Almeria) and the Monument to José Calvo Sotelo in the square of Castilla, where you can also find the Obelisco, of Calatrava. On Paseo de la Castellana you will also find the so-called Museum of Outdoor Sculpture of the Castellana, dedicated to abstract works, among which the famous stranded Sirena of Eduardo Chillida, who owes her name to the refusal of the Franco City Council to place her in the place initially envisaged, which led to a scandal in artistic environments and a set of disparate opinions in an audience unprepared for aesthetic innovations; the author called it "Meeting Point".

Equestrian sculptures are particularly important in the city. Chronologically, two sculptures from the 17th century stand out: Felipe III, in Plaza Mayor (the work of Giambologna), and Felipe IV, in Plaza de Oriente (one of the most important statues in Madrid), designed by Velázquez and built by Pietro Tacca with scientific advice from Galileo Galilei. From the 19th century are the statue of Espartero, on Calle de Alcalá facing the Retiro, and Marqués del Duero, on Paseo de la Castellana. ​ In Nuevos Ministerio was the equestrian statue of Francisco Franco (of José Capuz), which was removed in 2004 by the government of José Luis Zapíguez Zapóz But, inciting some scandal and coinciding with the debate on historical memory. The Puerta del Sol also features an equestrian sculpture by Carlos III, built on an 18th century design.

El Ángel Caido o Fuente del Ángel Caido de Ricardo Bellver (1877) ​

Scattered all over Madrid, especially in the center, there are many other notable sculptures: At one end of the Puerta del Sol you will find the sculpture, the symbol of Madrid El Oso and El Madroño, and at the other end you will find the replica of La Mariblanca, the original of which is in the Museum of History. Other of the most famous sculptures are the lions of the Courts, made by Ponciano Ponzano with the cast bronze of the cannons of the African War (1886), in front of which is a statue of Miguel de Cervantes. At the three doors of the Prado Museum are the statues dedicated to Goya (Mariano Benlliure), Velazquez (Aniceto Marinas) and Murillo (Sabino Medina), and opposite the Casón del Buen Retiro a statue of Queen Mary Cristina de Borbón (also made by Benlliure). In the Plaza de la Lealtad there is the Obelisk to those who have fallen by Spain; and in the square of Dos de Mayo, where Monteleón's artillery barracks were located, stands the sculptural group dedicated to Daoiz and Velarde. A series of statues of Spanish literati can be found on the steps of the National Library, and within it a remarkable one by Marcelino Menéndez and Pelayo. In the Plaza de España, a large sculptural group is located: the Monument to Cervantes, by Lorenzo Coullaut Valera. Another popular statue of Madrid is that of Eloy Gonzalo (the work of Aniceto Marinas and standing for architect José López Sallaberry), known as "the hero of Cascorro", who presides over Madrid's Race. Another sculptural area is the Retiro Park, where you will find El Ángel Caido (by Ricardo Bellver), the Monument to Alfonso XII (projected by José Grasés Riera), the Equestrian statue of Martínez Campos (de Benlliure) and more hidden the monuments dedicated to Julio Romero de Torres and Ramón y Cajal (Victorio Macho, 192 6). Inside the Botanical Gardens is a statue dedicated to Charles III. In the square of the opera is the statue of Elizabeth II, which was removed during the Second Republic. Also, some statue of prominent Republicans were set aside after the Civil War and rescued in democracy, such as the bust of Pablo Iglesias, the work of Emiliano Barral. Another famous bust, Antonio Machado's (the work of Pablo Serrano in 1966) was sculpted during the Franco era and had to remain hidden for years, today installed at the entrance of the National Library. ​

Andreu Alfaro's Enlightenment Door on the M-30 at La Vaguada. ​

In contemporary times there are more sculptural examples, such as La Gloria and the Pegasos of the Palacio de Fomento (in Atocha), originally carved in marble by Agustín Querol and replaced by hollow bronze copies due to their excessive weight. After years of storage, the Pegasos made of marble were placed in 1997 in the square of Legazpi, and the Gloria sculpted in marble was installed in 1998 at the roundabout of Cádiz in Usera. Other notable examples are the Phoenix at the top of the building of La Unión and Phoenix at Calle Alcalá; The Minerva of the Circle of Fine Arts; or the aurigas of Banco Hispano Americano in Plaza de Sevilla. Other modern sculptures include the Porte de la Enlustration, a structure of large semi-circular tubes that crosses the road of the Enlightenment avenue. It is made by Andreu Alfaro, also the author of the sculptural group of the Aluche interchanger. In 1970, Pablo Serrano sculpted the Monument to Gregorio Marañón, made in bronze and stone at the request of the people of Ciudad Universitaria; in 1972 he installed his work Units Yunta at the Museum of Public Art; in 1973 he sculpted Unidad Yunta Diada next to Torre Valencia; in 1973, La Fuente y el Río (known as "Poseidón") was also held on Calle Serrano, corner with Juan Bravo; and in Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz he installed the sculpture to Indalecio Prieto, guarding the building of the Nuevos Ministries.

Pablo Serrano: Units-yunta, Madrid (1972)

In the form of reliefs, attached to buildings or perched on their cornisms, there are many sculptures. In the post-Baroque period, the complex covers of Pedro de Ribera (that of the old Hospicio, now the Museum of History of Madrid, and that of Monte de Piedad, in addition to the decoration of the Toledo bridge and many other unique buildings) stand out. In another respect, there are also neon-lit advertising signs, some of which have acquired status as historical and are legally protected, such as that of Schweppes in Plaza del Callao, or that of Uncle Pepe in the Puerta del Sol. ​

Parks and gardens

Crystal Palace in the Retiro Park

Madrid is one of the European cities with the highest proportion of green areas per capita, namely 70 m² compared to an average of 20 m² in Europe. Moreover, with nearly 300,000 trees, it is the second largest city in the world in street and walks, surpassed only by Tokyo. ​ Two of the three regional parks in the Community of Madrid protect portions of the municipality of Madrid. More than a quarter of its term is protected by the Regional Park of the Upper Manzanares Basin, which includes the El Pardo Mountain and the Soto de Viñuelas, natural spaces located north-west and north of the urban center, respectively. In the south, 783 hectares of protected land are protected inside the Southeast Regional Park.

• The Parc del Retiro is located in the heart of the city center and is one of the most significant places in Madrid. It has many monuments and sights, such as the Palacio de Cristal, the Spanish gate, from Alfonso XII Street, La rosaleda, the pond and many fountains. It also has the world's first statue dedicated to the devil: the one of Angel Falls.
• Madrid Río Park is a new river park around the Manzanares River between the Pont des Franceses and the Nudo Sur, with a length of 121 ha and 6 km. It connects some of the main green areas of the city and the central and southwestern districts. Some of the most notable areas are the Pine Salon, the Gardens of the Virgen del Puerto, the Jardines del Puente de Toledo and the Arganzuela Park.

Loch of the Casa de Campo with the skyscrapers of the Plaza de España in the background

• The Casa de Campo is located in the Moncloa-Araaca district and with an extension of 1722.60 ha, the Casa de Campo is the real lung of Madrid. It is such a size that the Madrid Amusement Park, Madrid Zoo Park, or the cable car that connects to the Western Park are located inside. Historically belonging to the Royal House, the proclamation of the Second Republic meant its handover to the people of Madrid in 1931, opening this forest park for the first time to the enjoyment of the people of Madrid.
• Valdebeñas-Felipe VI Forest Park is located in the north-east of the city in the Valdebéas district. With 470 hectares, it is the second largest park in the city behind the Casa de Campo. ​
• Parc del Oeste is located between the La Coruña road, the Ciudad Universitaria and the Moncloa area. It has an area of 98.60 ha and contains species such as cedar trees in Lebanon, chopos, lime and beech. Every year, the International Contest of New Roses of the Villa de Madrid is held in the park.
• Juan Carlos I Park, 220 ha. Juan Carlos I Park is one of the largest in the city. It hosts the IFEMA exhibition center, where some of Europe's most important annual exhibitions, such as SIMO, are held. In addition, the so-called Garden of Three Cultures stands out, which contains three landscapes representing Christian, Jewish and Muslim cultures.

Capricho Park.

• El Capricho Park is located in the Alameda of Osuna, in the northeast of the city, and has a surface area of 14 hectares. It is considered one of the most beautiful parks in the city. Its nooks include the Place du Capricho, the Palace, the pond, the Place des Emperors, or the fountain of the Dolphins and the Ranas.
• La Dehesa de la Villa is located in the northwest of the city of Madrid, its main characteristic is that it maintains its status as a forest, and it is mostly without gardening. The most common tree of the leaf is pine, of which there are six species, mainly pineoners and carascos. Among these are many other species such as oak, acacia or cypress. The most common birds are, as in the rest of the city, pigeons, sparrows, and turkeys. Other species that you usually see are the hoopoe, picapine beak, or petirrhino.
• El Pinar de San José is located in the Peseta district, west of Madrid. Its main characteristic is that it maintains its forest status without gardening. In the Pinar de San José, thousands of pine trees that were planted in 1906 by the Order of Saint John of God are still preserved. The most common birds in this pine forest are: starlings, hooves, torcous pigeons, turracas, milling sparrows, argentine buds, peas, ducks, binders, coals and blacksmiths. The Pinar de San José has an area of 27.03 hectares, which can occupy 50 hectares according to the current project of expansion of the forest park.
• Enrique Tierno Galván Park is located in the district of Arganzuela, with a surface area of 45 hectares and located south of the former railway station of Delicias, now the Railway Museum, which has a beautiful stamp of the time. The area in which the park is nestled is known as "Cerro de la Plata".

Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid

• Real Jardín Botánico is located next to the Prado Museum’s art gallery. It has four terraces, the terraces of the paintings, the Botanical Schools, the Plano de la Flor and the Laureles, which contain American and Pacific plants, as well as European plants.
• Berlin Park is located in the Chamartín district of the Ciudad Jardín district. Opened in 1967, it covers just over 5 hectares. The bronze statue of the bear representing the German city of Berlin, to which the park was devoted, is remarkable. ​
• The Manzanares linear park runs parallel to the Manzanares River between the districts of Usera, Puente de Vallecas, Villaverde and Villa de Vallecas. With an area of 530 ha, it is appreciated for its ecological value within the urban nucleus.
• Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente park is a small 1.55 hectare park located in the Chamartín district, inaugurated in 1980 and dedicated to the famous naturalist.
• Juan Pablo II Park is in the south of the Hortaleza district. It has an area of about 10 ha.
• Parque Norte is located in the La Paz district of the district of Fuencarral-El Pardo. ​

Peripheral Barriers

Although the center of the city is where most of the tourist attractions are concentrated, some of the attractions are located in the suburbs. This is the case of the Planetario, located in the park of Enrique Tierno Galván next to the M-30, in the environment of Arganzuela and Puente de Vallecas.

The Royal Palace of El Pardo is located in the non-urbanizable district of Fuencarral-El Pardo. Its environment, Mount El Pardo, is protected both by being part of the National Heritage and by its ecological value, due to its abundant and diverse indigenous flora and fauna. This protected area also houses the Palace of Zarzuela, the residence of the Royal Spanish Family, and the recently built Pabellón del Príncipe de Asturias (2001). ​ the latter was the object of controversy, both for its cost (2.7 million euros) and for its anachronistic design. ​

Municipal elections

2019 Madrid municipal elections results ​

Represented Candidates		2,019
		%	Councilors
	Más Madrid	30.94	19
	People's Party (PP)	24.23	15
	Citizens (Cs)	19.13	11
	Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE)	13.72	8
	Vox	7.63	4

Madrid is governed by the Madrid City Council, whose representatives are elected every four years by universal suffrage of all citizens over the age of 18. The body is chaired (2019) by the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.

Mayors

Below is a list of the city's mayors since the 1979 democratic elections:

Districts

3 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Districts of Madrid numbered. The numbers correspond to the classification on the left.

Madrid is administratively divided into 21 districts, which in turn are subdivided into neighborhoods, not necessarily coinciding with the traditional neighborhoods. Each district is managed by a District Municipal Board, with competencies focused on channeling citizen participation. The last administrative division of Madrid dates back to 1988 and structure the city in a total of 21 districts and 131 neighborhoods:

1. Center. Palace, Ambassadors, Courts, Justice, University and Sol.
2. Arganzuela. Imperial, Acacias, La Chopera, Legazpi, Delicias, Palos de Moguer and Atocha.
3. Withdrawal. Pacific, Adelphs, Estrella, Ibiza, Jerónimos and Niño Jesus.
4. Salamanca: Recoletos, Goya, Fuente del Berro, Guindalera, Lista and Castellana.
5. Chamartín: El Viso, Prosperity, Ciudad Jardín, Hispanoamérica, New Spain and Castilla.
6. Tetuan: Beautiful Views, Four Paths, Castles, Almenara, Valdeacederas and Berruguete.
7. Chamberí: Gaztambide, Arapiles, Trafalgar, Almagro, Ríos Rosas and Vallebella.
8. Fuencarral-El Pardo: El Pardo, Fuentelarreina, Peñagrande, La Paz, Valverde, Mirasierra and El Goloso.
9. Moncloa-Aracaca: Casa de Campo, Argüelles, Ciudad Universitaria, Valdezarza, Valdemarín, El Plantío and Aracaca.
10. Latin: Los Carmens, Puerta del Ángel, Lucero, Aluche, Campamento, Cuatro Vientos and Las Aguilas.
11. Carabanchel: Comillas, Odiael, San Isidro, Vista Alegre, Puerta Bonita, Buenavista and Abrantes.
12. Usera: Orcasitas, Orchance, San Fermin, Almendrales, Moscardó, El Zofío and Pradolongo.
13. Bridge of Vallecas: Intervía, San Diego, Palomeras Bajas, Palomeras Southeast, Portazgo and Numancia.
14. Moratalaz: Pavones, Horcajo, Marroquina, Media Legua, Fontarrón and Vinateros.
15. Linear City: Sales, Pueblo Nuevo, Quintana, La Concepción, San Pascual, San Juan Bautista, Colina, Atalaya and Costillares.
16. Hortality: Palomas, Piovera, Canillas, Pinar del Rey, Apostol Santiago and Valdefuentes.
17. Villaverde: Villaverde Alto, San Cristóbal, Butarque, Los Rosales and Los Angeles.
18. Villa de Vallecas: Historical Center of Vallecas, Santa Eugenia and Ensanche de Vallecas.
19. Vicálvaro: Historical Old Town of Vicálvaro, Valdebernardo, Valderrivas and El Cañaveral.
20. San Blas-Canillejas: Simancas, Hellín, Amposta, Arcos, Rosas, Rejas, Canillejas and Salvador.
21. Scraps: Alameda de Osuna, Airport, Historic Quarter of Barajas, Timon and Corralejos.

Location

The city of Madrid is located in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula, a few kilometers north of the hill of Los Angeles, the geographical center of the Peninsula. The city coordinates are 40°26′N 3°41′O / 40.433, -3.683 . Madrid's population center is located 657 meters above sea level, ​ being one of the highest capitals in Europe. The maximum altitude of the municipality is about 846 meters, which is located north-west of the Pardo, near Torrelodones, and its minimum altitude of about 543 meters is in the south, on the banks of the Manzanares River. ​ The closest coastal point is 305 kilometers from Madrid, located in the province of Valencia. ​

The geographical and climate context of Madrid is that of the Southern Subplateau, within the Central Plateau. The city is located a few kilometers from the Sierra de Guadarrama and hydrographically is located in the Tajo basin.

Municipalities bordering Madrid: ​

Duration of the day, sunset and sunrise in Madrid during 2011.

Northwest: Old Colmenar, Manzanares Hole, Torches	North: Three Saints, Rooms	Northeast: Colmenar Viejo, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Alcobendas
West: Las Rozas de Madrid, Majadahonda, Pozuelo de Alarcón		This one: Paracuellos, San Fernando de Henares, Coslada
Southwest: Corcón, Leganés	South: Getafe	Southeast: Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Hydrography

Map of the city of Madrid's waterways and its surroundings

The main river of Madrid is the Manzanares, which penetrates the municipality in the area of Mount El Pardo by feeding the reservoir of the same name, to which the waters of the Manina and Tejada streams also arrive. After this natural space, the river begins its urban course around the university city, then briefly enters the Casa de Campo, where it receives the waters of the Meaques stream.

View of the Manzanares as you pass Madrid

In this more purely urban stretch, towards the bridge of the King, it received the waters of the Leganitos stream (its vaguada is the promenade of St. Vincent), then that of another stream that went along the street of Segovia, and later the waters of the stream of the Castellana Fountain (the fountain was located in the so-called Hippodrome High, where the current National Museum of Natural Sciences is, and the vaguada of the stream was running along the current Castellana-Prado axis).

In its next section it serves as the border between numerous districts, leaving in its southwestern margin those of Latina, Carabanchel, Usera and Villaverde and in the northeast to the districts of Centro, Arganzuela, Puente de Vallecas, Villa de Vallecas and the rest of the city. At this stage, in particular between the districts of Arganzuela and Puente de Vallecas, it receives the channel of the underground stream Abroñigal, whose route almost entirely coincides with that of the M-30 motorway, when the depression caused by its channel is used as a soundproofing measure of the fast track; it also receives the waters of the Butarque stream, around the district of Villaverde.

At the exit of Madrid, the river enters the eastern end of the municipality of Getafe, where it receives the waters of the Culebro stream, to open shortly after in the waters of the Jarama River, and in the environment of Rivas-Vaciamadrid.

In addition to those that drain in the Manzanares, there are other small river courses in the city of Madrid and its surroundings. This is the case of streams of la Moraleja, de la Vega, Valdelamasa or Viñuelas, which drain directly into Jarama or the Cedrón stream, which does so in the Guadarrama River.

Climate

Madrid's Cloudy Sky

According to Köppen's climate classification, Madrid's climate in the period 1981-2010 can be considered as a transition between typical Mediterranean climate (Csa) and semi-arid cold climate (BSk), tending more to the former. ​ ​ Other sources describe Madrid's climate as continental Mediterranean, differentiating it from typical Mediterranean climate (given) in areas close to the coast), due to its increased annual thermal amplitude and reduced rainfall due to its altitude and remoteness from the sea. Madrid's climate is strongly influenced by urban conditions (see: heat island). Average temperature (reference period: 1981-2010) is about 14,5 and 15 °C. ​ ​

Climogram of Madrid (Retiro)

Winters are moderately cold, with average temperatures in the coldest month (January) around 3-6 °C. Ice cream is frequent in winter and occasional snowfall (between one and five days of snow per year). In this month, the average maximum temperatures are about 9 °C and the minimum temperatures are about 0-2 °C. Summer is very hot. The warmest months are July and August, although July is slightly warmer. In this month, the averages exceed 25 °C, with average maximum temperatures between 32 and 33,5 °C and average minimum temperatures around 17 to 19 °C. At some times of the day, you can reach 41°C during the ​ summer. Daily thermal amplitude is important in the urban periphery (reaching more than 13 °C), but it is reduced in the city center by the anthropic effect (down to even 10 °C). The annual thermal amplitude is high (19-20 °C, a figure typical of the Southern Plateau) as a result of the long distance to the sea and the altitude (about 650 meters).

Madrid enjoys about 2,800 hours of sunshine a year, making it one of the most sunny cities on the peninsula. Indeed, along with Athens, which has similar annual precipitation, albeit with less cold winters, it is Europe's driest capital. Annual rainfall is around 400 mm, with a minimum marked in summer (especially in July and August). The maximum precipitation occurs in autumn (October to December) and in the spring months of April and May. The average humidity during the year is around 57 %, with a large oscillation between the cold, much more humid, and the warm, very dry periods. Average annual wind speed is between 7 and 10 km/h. ​ ​

The following are three tables showing climatological values in the reference period from 1981 to 2010 in the three observatories of the AEMET located in the municipality of Madrid: the Observatory of the Retiro located at 667 m., the Observatory of Madrid-Barajas Airport at 609 m. and the Observatory of Madrid-Cuatro Vientos Airport at 690 m. Note that extreme values are also taken in the period 1981-2010. ​ ​

Average climatic parameters of Observatorio del Parque del Retiro de Madrid (667 m) (Reference period: 1981-2010)
Month	Jan.	Feb.	Sea.	Apr.	May.	Jun.	July.	Aug.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. Aps. (°C)	19.9	21.0	26.0	29.6	33.4	38.5	39.5	40.0	37.0	28.7	22.7	17.7	40.0
Temp. max. mean (°C)	9.8	12.0	16.3	18.2	22.2	28.2	12.1	31.3	26.4	19.4	13.5	10.0	19.9
Temp. mean (°C)	8.3	7.9	11.2	12.9	16.7	22.2	25.6	25.1	20.9	15.1	9.9	6.9	15.0
Temp. min. mean (°C)	2.7	3.7	6.2	7.7	11.3	16.1	19.0	18.8	15.4	10.7	8.3	3.6	10.1
Temp. min. Aps. (°C)	-7.4	-6.5	-5.1	-1.6	1.9	4.4	10.2	11.1	6.2	1.2	-3.0	-5.5	-7.4
Total precipitation (mm)	32.8	34.5	25.0	45.3	50.5	20.9	11.7	9.6	22.4	59.5	57.7	51.1	420.9
Days of precipitation (≥ 1 mm)	5.7	5.2	4.1	6.7	7.3	3.4	1.7	1.7	3.3	6.9	6.5	6.8	59.4
Snowy days (≥ )	1.0	3.3	0.2	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.6	3.6
Relative humidity (%)	71	65	55	56	53	44	38	41	50	64	71	74	57
Source: State Meteorology ​ ​

Average climate parameters of Madrid Barajas Airport Observatory (609 m) (Reference period: 1981-2010)
Month	Jan.	Feb.	Sea.	Apr.	May.	Jun.	July.	Aug.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. Aps. (°C)	20.9	22.6	26.4	31.1	36.4	39.8	42.2	41.2	40.2	31.5	24.7	20.0	42.2
Temp. max. mean (°C)	10.7	13.0	17.0	18.7	23.1	29.5	33.5	32.8	27.9	21.0	14.8	10.9	21.1
Temp. mean (°C)	5.5	7.1	10.2	12.2	16.2	21.7	25.2	24.7	20.5	14.8	9.4	6.2	14.5
Temp. min. mean (°C)	0.2	1.2	3.5	5.7	9.3	13.9	16.8	16.5	13.1	8.7	4.1	1.4	7.9
Temp. min. Aps. (°C)	-10.4	-10.0	-6.6	-3.2	-0.5	5.0	7.0	8.2	4.0	-1.0	-7.4	-10.5	-10.5
Total precipitation (mm)	28.7	31.9	21.5	37.7	43.9	21.7	8.8	9.5	24.1	51.3	49.3	42.3	370.8
Days of precipitation (≥ 1 mm)	5.2	4.7	3.5	6.4	6.8	3.6	3.5	3.5	2.9	6.6	6.2	8.3	55.1
Snowy days (≥ )	0.7	0.9	0.3	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.6	2.6
Sun Hours	144.1	168.1	224.0	225.7	258.0	310.2	354.4	329.1	257.8	198.7	151.1	127.7	2,748.9
Relative humidity (%)	74	67	58	56	52	42	35	37	48	63	72	76	57
Source: State Meteorology ​ ​

Average climate parameters of Madrid Airport Observatory-Cuatro Vientos (690 m) (Reference period: 1981-2010)
Month	Jan.	Feb.	Sea.	Apr.	May.	Jun.	July.	Aug.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. Aps. (°C)	20.6	22.4	26.8	30.4	35.6	39.6	40.6	40.6	18.6	30.7	24.0	19.6	40.6
Temp. max. mean (°C)	10.4	12.5	16.5	18.3	22.6	28.9	32.8	32.2	27.3	20.4	14.3	10.7	20.6
Temp. mean (°C)	6.0	7.6	10.8	12.6	16.5	22.2	25.6	25.1	21.0	15.2	9.8	6.7	14.9
Temp. min. mean (°C)	1.6	2.7	5.1	6.8	10.4	15.4	18.3	18.1	14.6	9.9	5.4	2.7	9.3
Temp. min. Aps. (°C)	-8.0	-7.4	-5.6	-4.0	-1.2	3.6	5.8	9.2	4.6	1.2	-4.0	-7.5	-8.0
Total precipitation (mm)	33.9	34.7	25.1	43.3	49.5	24.5	11.8	11.3	24.0	59.7	56.7	52.9	427.5
Days of precipitation (≥ 1 mm)	5.6	5.3	4.2	6.7	7.2	3.2	1.6	1.4	3.2	6.9	6.7	6.8	58.8
Snowy days (≥ )	3.3	1.4	0.4	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.9	4.5
Sun Hours	158.0	173.0	220.8	237.6	279.8	315.6	363.5	335.4	250.2	202.7	160.7	135.0	2,837.9
Relative humidity (%)	75	67	57	56	53	43	36	39	49	65	73	77	58
Source: State Meteorology ​ ​

The following are some extreme values recorded in the three weather stations of the AEMET of the municipality of Madrid, considered from 1920 to 1961 depending on the season and the climatological variable. The maximum absolute temperature is 42,2 °C, recorded on 24 July 1995 at the Madrid-Barajas airport observatory, and the minimum absolute temperature of -15,2 °C recorded on 16 January 1945 at the Madrid-Barajas airport observatory. The peak precipitation record in one day is 87 mm on 21 September 1972 at the Retiro Observatory, and the maximum wind streak of 147 km/h recorded on 7 July 2017 at the Madrid Barajas Airport Observatory. ​

Madrid's gross domestic product (GDP) distribution (2003)

In 2003, Madrid had a gross domestic product (GDP) of 79,785 million euros, which was 10 % of national income. Of the economic sectors of the city, the most important is the tertiary or service sector, which already accounts for 85.09% of the economy of the city. Financial services (31,91 % of total GDP) and commercial activities (31,84 % of total GDP) are prominent in this sector. The rest of GDP is contributed by industry (8,96 % of total GDP), the construction sector (5,93 % of total GDP). Agriculture has a residual character, thus contributing only 0,03 % of the total.

It is the largest business center in Spain: in 2008, 72 % of the 2000 largest companies in Spain had their headquarters in Madrid. ​ And currently, 50,1 % of the revenues of the 5000 main Spanish companies are generated by companies with headquarters in Madrid, which represent 31,8 % of them. ​

Madrid was rated in a 2008 Mastercard report as the 5th largest trading center in Europe (after London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam) and the 11th largest in the world. ​

Economic History

The Old Regime

Madrid's Plaza Mayor, which was originally conceived as a market in the village's neighborhood, ended up being the scene of public spectacles, such as executions or bullfights.

The city developed greatly after Felipe II made it the capital of the Kingdom. ​

The administrative role it has played since then, accentuated by the centralist character of the system of government established by the Bourbons, led to the development of artisanal activity, including some protocapitalist institutions, such as the Five Major Ghosts or the Bank of San Carlos, and some real manufactures, such as the famous Porcelana del Buen Retiro, destroyed in the War of Independence or the Tabaco Factory of the Glorie de Ambassadors. The urban supply occupied a central place in the concern of the public authorities (state and municipal), and it rested on a complex network of public and private agents and institutions (storage, faithful pillow, trail, rests, forced, boards, resellers, etc.) that operated around the market (squares and Plaza Mayor), following the paternalistic and protectionist system that was characteristic of mercantilism. During the former Regime, Madrid was an imperial capital, sometimes described as an economic parasite that sucked resources from its domains without directly contributing to the genesis of its wealth. ​

Unlike other cities in the transition from feudalism to capitalism (notably London or Paris), its geographical position, on a plateau that could not be connected fluvially and isolated by mountain ranges on a coast hundreds of kilometers away, made it impossible for it to be the commercial center of the Hispanic Monarchy (a role that Seville could fulfill, or could have been Lisbon, had Philip II chosen). Therefore, Madrid's main function was to be the center of political and social life, and in economic terms a market of sumptuous consumption and the reference market of Castilian agriculture (mainly cerealist). The integration of a national market was not possible until well into the nineteenth century, with the route of railways and the political-economic changes of the liberal era (such as the disamortization) ​

The contemporary age and the labor movement

Republicans and Socialists rally on the late Jai Alai Fountain in 1909.

Madrid did not become a center of industrial importance in the 19th century, unlike other Spanish and European cities. The main merchandise carrying the train of Aranjuez (the first destination connected to Madrid and still called the Train of the Strawberry) were the woods that the gangsters were coming down from the highland highlands and that fed the construction, which has always been one of the main economic activities, in the absence of a more basic productive tissue. ​ Good evidence of industrial weakness was the relatively little development of the movement worker, who always had his center of gravity in Barcelona. The founding of the PSOE and the UGT in Madrid were curiously the result of the personality of Pablo Iglesias, a typographer (an industry linked to a traditional Madrid urban activity: book and newspaper publishing).

"El Aguila" beer factory. Example of the industrial architecture of the late 19th and early 20th. ​

Industrial expansion took place in the 20th century, especially after the Civil War and the post-war. ​ Development focused on dynamic sectors, such as chemistry, metallurgy and other specialties related to urban consumption of advanced technology: precision mechanics, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and others. One factor that favored industrial development at this time was the stimulation of the Administration, as a result of Madrid being the capital of the State, which indirectly resulted in the localization of a large number of headquarters of national and international companies. Also, the labor movement, which is bound by the Franco vertical union, responds to this new dynamic with the extension of the illegal Labor Commissions (born in Asturian mining) by factories on the Madrid industrial periphery, thanks to the activity of activists like Marcelino Camacho and Padre Llanos.

Since the advent of democracy and despite the administrative decentralization, the city's expansive tendency has been maintained, so it now presents one of the most dynamic and diversified economies in the European Union. ​ This has certainly been contributed by the privileged geographical position of the city, a very good level of infrastructure and a high degree of concentration of human capital, with a high level of training.

Productive activities

Number 69 on Calle de Serrano, building designed by Fernando Higueras and current headquarters of Santander Asset Management

The industry in the city of Madrid slowly loses weight to move to the municipalities of the metropolitan area of Madrid, especially the South-Southeast arch. Yet the industry still accounts for a significant share of the city's GDP. Construction was the fastest growing sector in Madrid in 2005, estimated at 8,2 %. The trend shows an increase in non-residential construction, driven by the slight slowdown in the increase in housing prices in 2005.

But it is the services sector that leads Madrid's economic activity, at 85% of the total, and accounts for two-thirds of the labor force. In addition to the traditional administrative and financial functions (Madrid is the headquarters of a large number of companies operating throughout Spain and hosts half of the national financial capital), there have been those related to transport or the promotion of Adolfo Suárez airport, Madrid-Barajas. Indeed, Madrid's largest centers of employment and contribution to GDP are its own airport and Ifema, the city's trade fair center, which, with its 4.7 million annual visitors, is the first fair in Spain and one of the main in Europe.

Moreover, Madrid has become one of Europe's most visited cities, only behind London, Paris, Istanbul, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Milan, Rome, and Vienna, ​ it is also Spain's second. Many activities are organized in the city, including tourism, leisure and cultural activities.

Fairs, exhibitions and congresses

In addition to being a national leader in the field of fairs and exhibitions, ​ ​ is the main organizer of the fair in Europe, ​ taking into account both international, national and regional fairs in terms of area rented by its exhibitors. It has the first exhibition organization in Spain, IFEMA, which organizes fairs such as: FITUR, Madrid Fusion, ARCO, SIMO TCI, the Automobile Hall and Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week. ​

Fashion

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid (2017)

Madrid is a reference for Spanish fashion and has international events in the sector, such as Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week.

Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week, starting in 2012, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, is the fourth most important gateway in the world behind New York, Milan, and Paris. ​ takes place in February and September. It's celebrated at IFEMA. It is the first gateway that demands a healthy image of its models. ​

Business areas

The city of Madrid has a number of fashion brands. Moreover, thanks to the international Pasarela Cibeles event, called since 2007 Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week, all major brands are based in the city. While retail stores are distributed throughout the city, there are also areas of special commercial concentration such as the Puerta del Sol, Serrano and Goya streets.

There are high sewing establishments from all major international brands, such as Emporio Armani or Gucci, as well as Spanish ones such as Zara, Loewe or Cortefiel. And of high jewelry, like that of the Madrid firm Carrera y Carrera. There are also many sportswear shops with the presence of the major brands. The El Corte Inglés chain, which is dedicated to fashion, has centers in the most crowded parts of the city.

In the Plaza Mayor and its arcades, every Sunday, stamps, coins and all kinds of collectable objects are sold. It is currently the largest philatelic and numismatic market in Spain. The street flea market of El Rastro is also known, and it unfolds on Sundays and public holidays around the Ribera de Curtidors street. Madrid offers the possibility to enjoy the few classic cafés left. The literary Café Gijón (Paseo de Recoletos, 21) and the Café Commeral (Bilbao roundabout, 7), closed in 2015, ​ but reopened on March 27, 2017 completely restored. ​

Tourism

Plaza Mayor de Madrid

Madrid, in the first half of 2014, was the most visited city of Spain with 4,069,121 tourists, surpassing cities such as Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca or Sevilla. ​ is also the headquarters of the World Tourism Organization and the International Tourism Fair (FITUR). During 2017, it was the most sought after destination for tourists in Argentina. ​ In 2012, Madrid received 8.8 million tourists, of which 5.3 million tourists were from national tourism and 3.5 million from international tourism.^{[Appointment]}

The most visited places in 2013 in the city by tourists, both domestic and foreign, were:

1. Reina Sofia Museum: 2,673,745 visitors (2014). ​
2. Prado Museum: 2,536,844 visitors (2014). ​
3. Parque de Atractions de Madrid: 2.5 million visitors. ​
4. Warner Park: 1.6 million visitors (2014). ​
5. Communications Palace: 1.2 million visitors (2014). ​
6. Madrid Zoo: 1.2 million visitors. ​
7. Royal Palace of Madrid: 1,176,243 visitors. ​
8. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum: 998,992 visitors (2014). ​
9. Santiago Bernabéu Stadium Tour: 920,000 visitors. ​
10. CaixaForum Madrid: 835 765 visitors (Sep. 2013-Aug. 2014). ​
11. National Archeological Museum: 696,007 visitors (2014). ​

Night life

Night view of the gate of Alcalá

During the 1980s and after the end of Francisco Franco's dictatorship, Madrid experienced a period of counter-cultural boom and nightlife, known as "Madrid's move", which has since made the city one of the most famous for its nightlife, bars and nightclubs. This is popularly known as "march" or "party". ​ It is mainly organized in the downtown district, where all kinds of styles and nationalities come together, giving rise to a rich mix, with many options, until late in the morning (1:00-7:00 h). There is a marked difference between the locals focused on national and international tourism. The areas traditionally oriented to the concentration of entertainment venues are Plaza de Santa Ana, in the so-called "Barrio de las Letras", and the neighborhoods of Malasaña, around Plaza Dos de Mayo, La Latina, Lavapiés, and Chueca. Areas such as Moncloa, avenue de Brasil and the Salamanca district are also worth a mention, ​ the district of Las Letras or Huertas is known for its social heterogeneity during Madrid's night, as many international tourists mix with provincial tourism and the local Madrid. The age range is also very varied.

Bars and restaurants on Barcelona Street

On the other hand, Malasaña has traditionally been a different or bohemian entertainment district, making bars of "alternative" music, rock, pop and certain electronic music very common. It was one of the precursors to the "botellón" in Madrid, until its abolition, and has several very famous places. Lavapiés is known for its multiculturalism, and its bars and clubs reflect it. Moroccan, Hindu, Flemish music, rock music and many concert halls.

Chueca stands out from these areas, characterized by its numerous gay-oriented offerings. Madrid Pride celebrations and the recognition of LGBT rights in Spain were internationally recognized with the appointment of Madrid as the site of the Europride in 2007 ​ and the World Pride in 2017. ​

Moncloa is a neighborhood frequented by young people, as it is the "march" area for university students between the ages of 18 and 24. Something similar happens on avenue de Brasil, while the Salamanca neighborhood, where people with high purchasing power reside, is the area of clubs and pubs that focus on a higher class or the most well-known characters on the Spanish television scene.

It is worth noting that major electronic music festivals are held, especially important, on 1 January (highlighting Space of Sound) and during the Gay Pride festivities. ​

Evolution of living debt

The concept of living debt covers only debt owed to banks and banks relating to financial credits, debt securities and loans or credits transferred to third parties, thereby excluding commercial debt. ​

Graph of the evolution of the living debt of the municipality between 2010 and 2019

Living municipal debt in thousands of euros according to data from the Ministry of Finance and Ad. Public. ​

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The Municipality has published the Energy Balance of the Municipality of Madrid, which concludes, among others, the decrease in energy dependence and the significant increase in energy generation from renewable sources between 2003 and 2006. ​

Rectorate of the Complutense University of Madrid

Education in Madrid depends in turn on the Madrid Community Education Council, which assumes the competences of education at the regional level. ​

Child, primary and secondary education

It is estimated that there are about 167,000 pupils in child education, 320,800 in primary education, about 4,500 in special education, and about 50,000 in vocational training. ​ The total number of non-university students is over 1 million, of whom some 600,000 are studying in public centers, 2 up to 60,000 in private centers arranged and about 150,000 in private unarranged centers. ​

In the twenty-one districts of Madrid, there are 520 daycare centers (98 public and 422 private), 235 public schools for children and primary education, 106 secondary schools, 309 private schools (with and without concerts) and 24 foreign centers. ​

University education

E.T.S. of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid

The Community of Madrid is home to six public universities (in addition to UNED, national). Of these, four have their paraninfo or one of their schools or faculties in the city of Madrid:

• Universidad Complutense de Madrid (with its paraninfo and most of its schools and faculties in the Ciudad Universitaria of Madrid).
• Autonomous University of Madrid (with its main campus in Cantoblanco and its medical school in La Paz). ​
• Polytechnic University of Madrid (with its paraninfo and some schools in the University City of Madrid and other schools in the Campus Sur in Vallecas, the Campus de Montegancedo, and the Campus Centro, with schools located in the center of Madrid (ETSI Minas, ETSI Industriales, EUIT Public Works, EUIT Industriales). ​
• Carlos III University of Madrid (with three campuses on the outskirts of Madrid, in Leganés, Getafe and Colmenarejo. It also has a post-graduate center in Puerta de Toledo.
• Rey Juan Carlos University (although it carries out most of its activity in Móstoles, Alcorcón and Fuenlabrada, it also has faculties in the Vicálvaro district and the headquarters of the Rey Juan Carlos University Foundation in Manuel Becerra).
• The University of Alcalá is based in Madrid, on Eloy Gonzalo Street, with postgraduate courses.

In addition to public universities, the following private universities are located in the Community of Madrid: University Colegio Cardenal Cisneros, IE University, Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio, Universidad Antonio de Nebrija, Universidad Camilo José Cela, Universidad a Distancia de Madrid, Universidad Europa de Madrid, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Universidad Eclesiástica San Dámaso, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca (Campus de Madrid) University of San Pablo CEU, Saint Louis University, Suffolk University and University of San Diego.

Madrid is also home to the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) and the National Library with its collection of historical archives.

It hosts the following National Academies:

• Real Academia Española
• Royal Academy of History
• Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando
• Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
• Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences
• Royal National Academy of Medicine
• Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation
• Royal National Academy of Pharmacy

In the district of Moncloa-Araaca is the University City of Madrid, a district where most of the colleges and colleges of the Complutense, Polytechnic and UNED universities are concentrated, as well as some of the centers of the CSIC. In its center is also the Palace of Moncloa, the seat of the President of the Government.

Cultural events

In the Residencia de Estudiantes (Student Residence), created by the Free Institution of Education, some of the greatest exponents of the Silver Age of Spanish culture coincided.

At the end of May and the beginning of June, the Madrid Book Fair is held every year in the Jardines del Retiro, which began its work in the time of the Second Republic in 1933. It is also held every year since 1977 on the Paseo de Recoletos, between the end of April and the beginning of May, the Old Book Fair and the Occasion of Madrid, organized, by the Association of Booksellers of Lance de Madrid

Madrid in literature, music and film

Cover of El Quijote (1605), printed on the street of Atocha by Juan de la Cuesta. Madrid's editorial activity has been very remarkable since the Court's installation.

Although there are not many references to Madrid in medieval literature, and there are even famous Madrid people in it, such as Ruy González de Clavijo, it is from the literature of the Golden Century that references to Madrid are very abundant, either because they are the stage of literary works or appear in their titles (The Steel of Madrid or Las Ferias de Madrid, by Lope de Vega He is referring in particular to the village, its customs and dwellers, including Cervantes himself, Lope de Vega (himself a native of Madrid), Quevedo, Góngora (a tenant and mortal enemy of that who had the pleasure of evicting him), and Tirso de Molina. The streets between Atocha and the Carrera de San Jerónimo concentrate most of the places of life and burial of these geniuses, including the place where Quijote was printed, and are known as Barrio de las Letras or Barrio de las Musas (not to be confused with the namesake located in San Blas-Canillejas). Two pens of comedies (the Corral del Principe, the precedent of the Spanish Theater, and the Caños del Peral, the precedent of the Opera Theater) shared the popular audience, riveting in the premiere of Tirso de Molina or Calderón de la Barca (both from Madrid). The 18th century meant a decline in the quality of literature, including the stage, although the Madrid public delighted with the Ramón de la Cruz sainets, of a chastique environment (one of which coined the term Manolo), or the most intellectual productions of the Moratín (father and son). ​

Manzanares, in good taste, are, although poor, your waters, since after arriving in Madrid, from the Sierra will unravel...

Molina Shoot, Don Gil green shoe.

Madrid, famous castle
that King Moro relieves fear...

Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, Bullring in Madrid, in quintillas.

Brighter had the musical scene, in which, apart from the national ones, foreign figures such as the castrato Farinelli and the composer Luigi Boccherini, who came to identify with the city enough to produce the celebrity Ritirata Notturna di Madrid. Also noteworthy is the presence of Domenico Scarlatti, who lived and composed one of his most famous works in Madrid, where he died in 1757.

The Madrid romanticism of the 19th century has in Madrid Mariano José de Larra its main exponent. His suicide and burial (with a reading of epitaph by José Zorrilla included) are only understood in the context and environment that reflects perfectly the Romantic Museum. With authors like Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, Federico Chueca, and Tomás Breton, a dramatic genre of indigenous music, popular atmosphere and costumbrista develops: la zarzuela, of which Madrid is the world capital, has specialized the programming of the Teatro de la Zarzuela or the Teatro Apolo. Madrid's traditional atmosphere also produced popular comedies, such as those of Alicante Carlos Arniches, which, rather than reflecting popular speech, exaggerated it to a parodic point that, interestingly, ended up being imitated by the real speakers.

Café de Fornos, Historic Landscape of Literary Tours

At the end of the century, the canary Benito Pérez Galdós will reflect many events in Madrid in his national Episodes, and in other novels it will catch the atmosphere of the various social classes (Fortunata and Jacinta, Miau, Mercy). This is the moment (1896) when Alexandre Promio, a cameraman from the company Lumière, arrives in Madrid and takes the first films, in which the Puerta del Sol appears. At the beginning of the 20th century, it is probably the Esperento of Valle Inclán (Luces of Bohemia, a night trip of a blind poet for a sordid Madrid) that best reflects the reality of the village. In a famous passage, the deformant mirrors of the cat alley are cited as inspiration for that vision, which has also been compared to the aesthetics of the painter José Gutiérrez Solana or Ramón Gómez de la Serna (as famous for his work as for his juicy tertulia at Café Pombo).

Pombo (1918) by Ramón Gómez de la Serna

A literary contrast would be the realistic view of Pio Baroja in his trilogy The Struggle for Life (The Tree of Science, Bad Grass, Red Aurora) or that of Arturo Barea (The Forge of a Rebel). The 1927 generation had one of their meeting places at the Student Residence, where Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí, and Luis Buñuel could come into contact. ​ It is not exaggerated to talk about Silver Age. But a little later, the poets who "won who won" lost the war, ​ were on both fronts, playing "geographically" to suffer the repression of the Republican side in Madrid of literati such as Enrique Jardiel Poncela or Pedro Muñoz Seca and Ramiro de Maeztu (who were shot); and sing the resistance of the "Rompeolas de las fifty spanish provinces" to Antonio Machado:

Madrid, Madrid; how well your name sounds,
All Spains!
The earth rips apart, the heaven burns,
you smile with lead in your guts. ​

The "victory" ​ led many survivors to exile (inside or outside). In Madrid, Vicente Aleixandre or Gerardo Diego stayed, according to him in a city of "just over a million corpses." On the triumphant side, they didn't see things that were much happier, as La colmena de Camilo José Cela or the film Surcos, by José Antonio Nieves Conde, denouncing from a Phalangist ideology the corruption that the city exerted on a family of migrant farmers. The generation of the 50 insisted on the dark colors (The fantastic tavern of Alfonso Sastre, set in the stream of Abroñigal, today M-30; El Jarama de Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, who recounts the passage of time of young people from Madrid who are going to cool off on the banks of that river; o Time of silence of Luis Martín-Santos, which runs through Madrid, from the Superior Center of Scientific Research, the Athenius and aristocratic mansions to brothels, popular verbenas and slum).

The Carrión building is the scene of the film The Day of the Beast

The cinematography depicted by Madrid of the time had high-consumption evasion products, which propagated traditional values with more or less sweetened dyes, as in the films of Rafael J. Salvia (Manolo, urban guard; The Red Cross girls, The Great Family, is co-directed by Fernando Palacios). Another with a higher aesthetic height and social engagement masked in black humor can be seen in García Berlanga (A happy couple, The executioner), Edgar Neville (Carnival Sunday and the last horse), or Marco Ferreri (the peck and El checito). The Madrid scene, at the same time that it collects the last period of the intimate genre (the cuplé and the music magazine, closely subject to censorship), ​ represents the pessimistic works of Antonio Buero Vallejo, since History of a ladder (1949) and other atmospheres in Madrid (The detonation, at the time of Larra ・A dreamer for a people・in the town of Esquilache).

The gray color probably didn't clear the artistic atmosphere until the outbreak of the Madrid movement between the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Pedro Almodóvar's films and the so-called new Madrid comedy (Fernando Colomo) reflect a Madrid that definitely surpassed the death of a cyclist from Juan Antonio Bardem twenty years earlier. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the drivers of the movement led to widespread urban degradation, owing to the rise of heroin, which was felt in Chueca (now an open-minded gay neighborhood), Villaverde, San Blas, or Vallecas and adjacent marginal villages. Some of this transcends in the song "Pongamos que Hablamos de Madrid" by Joaquín Sabina or in the movies El día de la Bestia (1995) and in the humorous code, Torrente (1998), where the concept of caspa —very Madrid's word that designates something in decadence and racy old age, whether it's mentality, fashion or environment— takes full meaning. The entire history of the city is reflected in a minute in Look at it!, the Puerta de Alcalá sung by Víctor Manuel and Ana Belén.

Museums

The Prado Museum houses one of the most remarkable art collections in the world, especially with regard to European painting of the Renaissance and Baroque. ​

Madrid has important museums, among which the pinakotecas stand out, which are one of the main tourist attractions of the city. The so-called Triangle of Art concentrates close to each other, three reference centers: the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, and the Reina Sofia Museum:

• The Prado Museum is one of the most important museums in the world, ​ is ​ mainly dedicated to painting. It is said that it is not the most complete library, but it is the richest because of the accumulation of masterpieces. Its collection focuses on painting from the previous 20th century, especially Spanish, Italian and Flemish. Some of the masterpieces he exhibits include: The knight of his hand in the chest of Greco; The Meninas, the Breda surrender, the hilanderas, the fragua of Vulcano・ and the triumph of Bacoæde Velázquez; The naked maja, the clothed maja, the family of Charles IV, The burden of the mumps, the rifles in the Moncloa, in the black paintings of Goya; The Three Thanksgiving, The Judgment of Paris, The Adoration of the Magicians of Rubens; the Self-Portrait, the Adam and Eve, of Durero; the Descent of Rogier van der Weyden; The garden of delights, The hay cart, The table of capitalist sins, Extraction of the stone of madness, of El Bosco; Carlos V in Mühlberg, La bacanal de los andrios, Ofrenda a Venus, Danae receiving the gold rain, from Tiziano; The family of Felipe V of Louis-Michel van Loo; works by Hyacinthe Rigaud, Watteau, Boucher, Poussin, Georges de La Tour Claudio de Lorena; Rafael or El Lavatorio de Tintoretto. In addition to the pictorial chapter, it has a remarkable collection of sculpture, with Greco-Roman, Renaissance and other works, as well as collections of drawings, prints and decorative arts. ​

The façade of the Reina Sofía Museum, where one of the exterior elevators looks like it. ​

• The National Museum of Queen Sofia Art Center is the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Its funds cover art from the late 19th century, 20th and XXI, with special emphasis on Spanish artists. It has important collections by Pablo Picasso (with the Guernica, one of his masterpieces), Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris and Joan Miró. Other artists represented are Julio González, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Eduardo Chillida, Pablo Palazuelo, Pablo Serrano, Jean Arp, René Magritte, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon, Pablo Gargallo, Alexander Calder, Mark Rothko or José Gutiérrez-Solana, to name a few. It also houses an open-access library specialized in art, with funding of more than 100,000 books, 3,500 sound recordings and nearly 1,000 videos. ​

One of the halls of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

• The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum represents one of the largest private art collections in the world, mostly acquired by the Spanish State. Its collections show a panoramic view of the art history, chronologically ordered, so that the visit in the Renaissance begins and ends in the 20th century. On the second floor, a tour of the final Gothic and the Renaissance cycle to the Baroque, passing through the Quattrocento Italian; with German and Flemish school authors such as Jan van Eyck, Alberto Durero and Hans Holbein, and a gallery dedicated to Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano, Greco, Bernini and Caravaggio, among others. On the first floor, the Dutch painting collection is shown, from Frans Hals to Max Beckmann; with displays of realism, rococo, neoclassicism, Romanticism and impressionist movements. The ground floor houses works from the 20th century, from cubism and early avant-garde to pop art. Some contemporary masterpieces by Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Marc Chagall or Edward Hopper stand out. ​ it is worth noting that this museum is the only one in Spain to present a coherent panorama of pictorial currents such as Impressionism, German Expressionism or European romantic painting in addition to exposing works by authors who are completely absent from other state collections, such as Jan van Eyck, Frans Hals, Piero della Francesca, Vincent van Gogh or Friedrich.

Other important Madrid museums are:

Roman Mosaics in the National Archeological Museum

• The National Archeological Museum shows archeological findings from the Prehistoric to the 19th Century, especially from the Iberian Peninsula, distributed over three floors. Some of her most representative works are the Lady of Elche, the Lady of Baza, the Grand Lady offering the Cerro de los Santos, the Lady of Ibiza, the Bicha de Balazote, the Treasury of Guarrazar, the Bote de Zamora, the grave of Pozo Moro or a neo-perian abacus. Its collections of Roman mosaics, Greek ceramics, Islamic art and Romanesque art are very important. In addition, the museum features a reproduction of the polychrome roofs of the Altamira cave in an underground room under the outdoor garden.

• The Royal San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts Museum contains a large permanent collection of works, especially Spanish, Italian and Flemish art from the 18th and 19th centuries. Some authors represented are Murillo, Ribera, Zurbarán, Goya, who was also a member of the Academy, Vicente López, José de Madrazo, Federico de Madrazo, Sorolla, and among foreigners Giovanni Bellini, Arcimboldo (La Primavera is the only work of his in Spain), Correggio, Rubens and Mengs. It also has works by modern authors such as Juan Gris and Picasso. ​

• The Museum of America holds vast collections covering both pre-Columbian America and colonial art and ethnography.

• The Sorolla Museum is located in the building where the artist had his home and his workshop. His origin is in the testamentarian legacy that his widow, Dona Clotilde García del Castillo, made in favor of the Spanish State, which included both the property and numerous works. In addition to being the largest collection of Sorolla's work (mainly paintings and drawings), Sorolla also has other paintings that Sorolla had painted by his friends. On the other hand, his private collection also included pieces of sculpture, pottery, archeology (to which he was very fond), jewelry (ethnographic) and photography. The Museum also maintains the painter's correspondence file.

• The Lázaro Galdiano Museum was donated to the State by Don José Lázaro Galdiano. It has all kinds of artifacts and instruments of craftsmanship and historical jewelry, as well as collections of painting, sculpture and drawing, with works by authors such as Velázquez, El Bosco, Murillo and, above all, Goya. ​

• The National Museum of Decorative Arts exhibits 40,000 pieces covering furniture, ceramics (Manises, Talavera de la Reina, Buen Retiro, Sèvres), glass (old, Farm, Lalique), textiles, carpets and an important background of oriental works (Chinese porcelain, Japanese xilographies — ukiyo-e —, suits, paint rolls musical instruments and bronzes).

• The National Museum of Natural Sciences has more than 6 million specimens, and offers exhibitions dedicated to the dissemination of Natural Sciences: Biology (evolution, ecology), Geology (rocks, minerals) and Paleontology (fossils). Historical specimens such as a megaterio (arrived in Madrid from Argentina in 1789), the diplodoco (a dinosaur replica given by the American billionaire Carnegie to King Alfonso XIII), a rare thylacine stuffed, or the magnificent bird and mammal dioramas prepared by the brothers Benedito, taxi drivers at the Museum during the first decades of the 20th century.

• The Museo Cerralbo contains funds including works by Greco, Tintoretto and Zurbarán, in addition to an important collection of armor, porcelain and numismatics, in a 19th century mansion.

• The Royal Barefoot Monastery has a museum with an important collection of paintings, sculptures, tapestries and blacksmiths donated to order during the reign of Charles I and Philip II. It contains works by Tiziano, Rubens and Zurbaran, in addition to the shrine of Empress Maria of Austria, the work of Crescenci, and sculptures by Juan de Mena.

• The National Museum of Anthropology is dedicated to providing a global view of the different cultures on the planet with objects from various parts of the world, but mostly focused on Spain and its former colonies in the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea. Among his pieces are Tenerife's guanche mummy, the skeleton of the Extreme Giant and reduced human heads of Ecuador.

• Madrid's Museum of History, formerly the Municipal Museum, houses pieces relating to the city's history in an important baroque building by architect Pedro de Ribera.

• The Museo de Cera de Madrid, located in front of Plaza de Colón, houses more than four hundred wax figures, showing the history of Spain through different scenarios. It also features contemporary figures such as Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Iniesta, Antonio Banderas and Woody Allen, among others.

• The Railway Museum, located in the building that used to be Delicias station, houses a collection of locomotives and wagons that have been part of the history of the Renfe and the companies that preceded it. It is organized by tractions: steam, diesel and electric; there is also a space dedicated to modeling, fixed material and Sala Talgo.
  • Museo La Neomudéjar
    The Museum of Neomudéjar. it is the Center of the Vanguardia Arts, a place of experimentation and creativity that bets on rescuing unused spaces. Bet to give voice to the New Media Arts and focuses on promoting disciplines such as Art Brute, Urban Art, Video, Performance, Parkour, Sound Art and bringing them closer to the general public.

Other museums in the capital include the Traje Museum, the National Museum of Romanticism, the Museum of Public Art (formerly the Museum of Open Sculpture of Castellana), the Original Museum (former Museum of San Isidro), the Geominero Museum, the Naval Museum, the ONCE Tyflological Museum, the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions of the Autonomous University of Madrid or the Museum of the Spanish capital Museum of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Air Museum) of Cuatro Vientos.

Gastronomy

The calamari sandwich is a typical element of Madrid's gastronomy

The traditional gastronomy of Madrid is part of the Spanish cuisine in general, and in particular the Castilian gastronomy, of which some dishes and preparations retain the culinary characteristics inherited from the time of the installation of the Felipe II court in the villa. Some of the most characteristic dishes are Madrid-style cocido, callos a la madrileña, garlic soup, the house in general, and desserts such as silly and ready-made roquillas, the bones of santo or the Madrid torrijas. The cuisine of Madrid has always been very influenced by its characteristic of the city of alluvion, collecting customs and culinary practices of Andalusia, Manchegos, Extremadurans and other Spanish regions, especially between the years between 1950 and 1970.

Callos a la madrileña

The typical aroma of the Madrid cuisine is often imbued with the properties of the friture in vegetable oil (olive, sunflower and others), as is evident in the popular dishes served in bars, restaurants and other establishments in the city: the churros, the potato omelet, or the typical squid sandwiches served in the area around the Plaza Mayor, as well as other traditional tapas or rations, such as potatoes bravas. Among the most representative classics are "Entresijos y gallinejas" (Intersijos and gallinejas), ​ a dish prepared fried in its own intestinal lamb fat, served with churruscado and accompanied by chips also in this fat, making one of the most representative prints of the verbs.

Since the 1980s and with the changing habits of consumption, multinational fast food and "ethnic" food establishments have proliferated, such as pizza or kebab. ​

The rise of immigration at the end of the 20th century contributed to the introduction of the gastronomy representative of the different cultural groups that have settled in the city. This is how some have developed such as Chinese, Ecuadorian and Romanian cuisine, and even in Madrid there are markets specialized ​ in foreign cuisine, such as the market of the Mostense.

The San Miguel market has become an emblematic place to visit in Madrid, being the pioneer of a new gastronomic concept ​ focused on gourmet products where you can buy and at the same time taste products and dishes.

Local parties

Opening of the San Isidro festivities (mid-May)

Pride celebrations, since 1978 promoted by the Homosexual Liberation Front of Castilla.

Some of his most popular festivities and festivals are: ​

• January 17th, the first one is the celebration of San Antonio Abad near the church of San Anton.
• March and April Easter. The penitential sisters organize processions in which they carry artistic steps through the center and the neighborhoods of Madrid.
• On May 1st, the already extinct festival of Santiago el Verde in the gates of the Manzanares River. This popular celebration in the 17th century, began to stop celebrating in the first third of the 18th.
• On the first Sunday of May, Mayas are celebrated.
• May 15th, Romería de San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of Madrid, celebrated in the prairie of San Isidro, next to its hermitage, in Carabanchel (local festival).
• The Thursday after the 8th of Pentecost (early June), Corpus Christi is celebrated in Madrid
• On June 13th, the San Antonio Hermitage of Florida celebrates the verbena of San Antonio.
• July first weekend. Madrid Pride celebrations in Chueca.
• On July 16th, Día de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, patroness of the districts of Puente de Vallecas and Chamberí, celebrate the Carmen holidays.
• On August 7th, the celebrations of San Cayetano in honor of San Cayetano, patron saint of the neighborhood of Cascorro.
• On August 10, the San Lorenzo festivities in honor of San Lorenzo, the landlord of the Lavapiés neighborhood.
• On August 15th, the Paloma festivities in honor of the Virgen de la Paloma, patron of the Central and Arganzuela districts. Just like the firefighters in Madrid.
• On September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the feast of the Virgin of Puerto (popularly known as Fiesta de la Melonera) is celebrated in the district of Arganzuela, as well as that of Santa María la Blanca, patron of Canillejas.
• On September 9th, Fiestas de Santa María de la Cabeza, wife of San Isidro Labrador (local holiday when San Isidro or Nuestra Señora de la Almudena falls on Sunday).
• On September 29th, parties of San Miguel Archangel, patron of the former municipality of Chamartín de la Rosa, and of the current district of Chamartín, are celebrated in the Park of Berlin.
• On October 12, Virgen del Pilar, patron of the Salamanca neighborhood and the Pilar neighborhood.
• On November 9th, the Festival of Virgen de la Almudena, patron of Madrid and her archdiocese (local festival).
• On November 15th, an ancient Romería de San Eugenio, celebrated on Mount El Pardo in honor of San Eugenio when the territory of Madrid belonged to the archdiocese of Toledo, but which was abandoned towards the end of the nineteenth century, when Madrid was separated and got its own bishop.

Highways

Map of the Community of Madrid pointing out urban transport areas in Madrid by municipalities.

The main highways in Madrid have a radio route. The most important are the heirs of the previous radials (numbered with Roman numbers: N-I, N-II, etc.).

Other highways that originate in Madrid and are of great importance because of the density of their traffic are the A-42 that links Madrid with Toledo and the M-607, an autonomous-owned highway that links Madrid with the port of Navacerrada, serving the towns of Colmenar Viejo and Tres Cantos.

Madrid also has a number of bypass roads:

• the M-30, which is municipal-owned, which delineates the central almond tree of the city and is wholly carried out by the municipality of Madrid;
• the state-owned M-40, which surrounds the residential neighborhoods of the city. Except in its western section, it runs through the municipality of Madrid;
• the M-45, which is autonomous-owned, bordering the municipality in the south and south-east and almost entirely by the municipality of Madrid;
• the M-50, state-owned, barely touching the municipality of Madrid in the southeast, at the height of the Vallecas district.

The city of Madrid has an anti-pollution protocol with four possible phases, depending on the levels of nitrogen dioxide, which restrict circulation by the central almond. ​ In particular, phase 3 was activated for the first time on December 29, 2016. ​

Metro

Madrid Metro Scheme

Principe Pio

The Madrid Metro was inaugurated on October 17, 1919 by King Alfonso XIII and its 13 lines have a total length of 294 kilometers. ​ ​ is the third in Europe per kilometer, after London and Moscow, and the ninth in the world. ​ 569.73 million displacements were recorded during 2014. ​

Madrid's Metro network is composed of 12 conventional lines, the branch that links Opera and Principe Pio, and three light metro lines that total 27.78 km and have 38 stations.

Of the 302 current stations (2019), 201 are simple, 27 have two lines, 10 have three lines and the Avenida de América station, which transports four lines. 21 stops are connected to the Madrid suburban network of Renfe. ​

Railway

Atocha Gate Station with Renfe 112 Series AVE trains

Nearby Map

The public railway company (Renfe) operates on almost all Spanish railway lines. The most important railway stations in Madrid are Atocha (officially Puerta de Atocha), Chamartín and, for freight transport, Vicálvaro classification station, east of the city.

From the Atocha and Chamartín stations, train lines also leave for all the Spanish provincial capitals. The train, suburban and subway networks are widely interconnected with exchangers such as those in Atocha, Chamartín, Principe Pio or Nuevos Ministries.

There is also a growing network of high-speed trains from Madrid. The lines currently operating are: ​

• Madrid - Ciudad Real - Puertollano - Córdoba. Ramales to Sevilla and Málaga.
• Madrid - Guadalajara - Calatayud - Zaragoza - Lleida - Tarragona - Barcelona - Girona - French border. Ramal to Huesca from Zaragoza.
• Madrid - Toledo.
• Madrid - Segovia - Valladolid.
• Madrid - Cuenca - Valencia - Castellón.
• Madrid - Cuenca - Albacete - Villena - Alicante.
• Madrid - Barcelona - Montpellier - Avignon - Marseille.

And the following lines are running: ​

• Madrid - Talavera de la Reina - Plasencia - Cáceres - Mérida - Badajoz - Lisbon
• Madrid - Segovia - Valladolid - León - Oviedo - Gijón

Buses

There is a network of urban buses managed, like the rest of the public transport network, by the Madrid Transport Consortium and the Madrid Municipal Transport Company, which has 1,900 vehicles and 207 lines. ​ many inhabitants of the capital's suburbs, the same autonomy and neighboring provinces use the services of the suburban railway and interurban buses to reach the capital and then use the services of the intercity buses. the subway. That is why the bus network is also widely interconnected with the railways. The main exchangers are those of Avenida de América, Méndez Álvaro and Plaza de Castilla, although there are other minors, such as Moncloa, Principe Pio and Plaza Elíptica. ​ ​

Air transport

Barajas Terminal 4

Madrid's main airport is Adolfo Suárez airport, Madrid-Barajas (IATA: MAD, ICAO: LEMD), located in the northeast of the city, 12 kilometers from the center. ​ started its service in 1928, although it was officially opened in 1931 and is currently managed by Spanish Airports and Air Navigation AENA. It is also Spain's main airport for passenger traffic. ​

In 2019 the airport moved 61.7 million passengers, up from the previous 6.6%. It ranked 13th worldwide and 5th European by number of passengers transported. In 2007, passenger traffic has risen to 52 122 702, making Barajas the tenth in the world by volume of passengers and the fourth in Europe, surpassing that of Amsterdam-Schiphol which hitherto held that position inside European airports. ​

The airport is connected to the city via Metro Line 8, the Renfe suburban network of numerous buses and taxis.

The city also has a second-rate airport, Cuatro Vientos, for military use and flight school. The latter was the first to be built from Spain. ​

• A night view of Madrid from Paracuellos de Jarama, with Adolfo Suárez airport, Madrid-Barajas in the center.

Madrid Derbi between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid held in 2010 in Santiago Bernabéu.

Among the athletes born in Madrid are tennis player Manuel Santana, skiers Francisco and Blanca Fernández Ochoa, rally pilot Carlos Sainz, footballers Luis Aragonés (technically born in a municipality nowadays district), Emilio Butragueño, Iker Casillas, Raúl González, Gabi Fernández, Mario Hermoso, Álvaro Morata and Koke the waterpolistas Jesús Rollán and Pedro García Aguado, the gymnast Estela Giménez and the footballer Soni.

The most frequent sport in the city of Madrid is football, represented in the First Division of the Professional Football League by the Real Madrid Football Club, which plays as a local in Santiago Bernabéu, the Athletic Club of Madrid, whose stadium is the Metropolitano and the Vallecano Rayo of Madrid, which plays their games as a local in the Stadium of Vallecas, the venue owned by the Community of Madrid.

Meeting of Vallecano Rayo as a local

In Second Division B, the Sports Grouping Union Adarve and the International de Madrid and the branches Real Madrid Castilla and Atletico de Madrid "B" play, and in lower category the CD Colonia Moscardó (which, like the previous two, came to play in Second). Other clubs in what is now the city, already missing (such as Spanish, Racing, the Real Sociedad Gimnástica Española or the Nacional), or currently relegated to lower categories (such as the Real Club Deportivo Carabanchel, today the city's third oldest club and the 13th of Spain), were key to the development of the sport king in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. Indeed, Madrid was one of the first places where football was introduced in Spain, with the 1879 constitution of Cricket and Foot-ball Club.

2018 Madrid Athletics Player

Moving on to women's football, two teams in the city have been champions of the Iberdrola League and the Queen's Cup: the Club Atlético de Madrid (incumbent champion of Liga, who plays in the municipal term his most important matches, in the stadium of the first men's team) ​ ​ and the Vallecano Rayo of Madrid (who plays in the Ciudad Deportiva Rayo Vallecano Sports Foundation). In recent times, the Madrid CFF, a team that traditionally played as a local in the capital (Polisports Luis Aragonés), has been added to the highest national status, but that moved its stadium to another municipality in the Community by ascending the category. ​

On the other hand, a special mention deserves to be made of football, since the Inter FS, the most laureate club in the world in this field, was founded in the city and played its games in it from 1977 to 1991 (pavilion Antonio Magariños, where the Atletico de Madrid's handball team also played) ​, until he moved to other municipalities in the Community.

Student ACB League meeting held at the Sports Palace.

Basketball is also very popular. The two most representative teams of the city, both in the ACB League, are Real Madrid and the Students Club of Basketball.

La Vuelta a España is conventionally a term for Madrid. In the image stage of 2013 with cyclists roaming Gran Vía.

Just like the Tour de France, the Tour de Francia cycling tour traditionally ends in Madrid. In addition, Madrid hosted the 2005 World Road Cycling Championships in which Belgian Tom Boonen and Australian Michael Rogers won the counter-clock specialty.

Since 2003, the Masters 1000 Madrid or Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open tennis tournament, formerly known as Master Series in Madrid, was held in the Madrid Arena pavilion. It is the only one along with the one in Paris that plays on a covered track. In May 2009, it became a clay tournament, changing its flag. The Magic Box is the venue where it has been contested since 2009. It has a capacity of about 10,000 spectators and was one of the key players in Madrid's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Since 2013 in Madrid, one of the most prestigious hurdles in the world, the CSI 5* Grand Prix, has been held every year at the Club de Campo: Longines Global Champions Tour and the Global Champions League team competition. In 2018 the "Madrid in Motion" team (Eduardo Álvarez Aznar, Maikel Van Der Vleuten, Marc Houtzager) won the great GCL Supercup Final in Prague with a record prize of 6.4 mill €). ​

San Silvestre Vallecana is celebrated every December 31

In athletics, the most important competitions are the so-called San Silvestre Vallecana, a massive background race that takes place every December 31, and the Madrid People's Marathon (MAPOMA) that takes place annually in spring.

2010 Madrid Open - Women's Singles

Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, opened in 1931. ​

Madrid is home to the largest bullring in Spain and the third largest bullring in the world: Sales. It is the latest in a series of squares that since the 18th century were "moving", increasingly moving away from the center of Madrid on Calle de Alcalá. The first festivities were celebrated in the Plaza Mayor, as were the Autos de Fe de la Inquisition, solemn religious ceremonies, coronations or other acts. The first one built ex profeso, in 1749, was next to the Puerta de Alcalá and the building of the Pósito. The second, at the junction of Goya street, next to the current Plaza and monument of Dalí, in the space now occupied by the Palacio de Deportes of the Community of Madrid. ​

There is a venue used as a smaller bullfighting thing (suitable for 14,000 spectators, currently covered and air-conditioned), the Plaza, Palace or Integrated Center of Vistalegre (not to be confused with the homonym of Bilbao), inaugurated in 2000 by Curro Romero in the district of Carabanchel-Vista Alegre. It had a precedent in the area, the square known as "La Chata", built in 1908 and demolished in 1995, long owned by Luis Miguel Dominguín. ​ In the Casa de Campo is the Venta del Batán, where the bulls that are dealt with at the Fair of San Isidro, and which houses the School of Tauromaquia. Annually, in addition to those of the Fair (which takes place around May 15, the festivity of the patron saint of Madrid), the Corrida de la Chareficencia and la Corrida de la Prensa are particularly significant. The bullfighting atmosphere of Madrid is projected out of the square, especially in bars with a bullfighting atmosphere, such as Antonio Sánchez's tavern (a bullfighter that opened it in 1830) ​ on Calle Mesón de Paredes, or many others in the vicinity of Puerta del Sol.

Failed Olympic Candidates

JJOO Candidature 1972 - The history of the Madrilean candidacy to host an Olympic Games dates back to December 29, 1965, when a joint candidacy with Barcelona to host the 20th edition of the 1972 Games was presented to the International Olympic Committee. The Spanish candidacy was however ruled out at the session of the IOC in Rome on 26 April 1966 after the election of Munich.

Madrid Arena

Candidatura JJOO from 2012 - Madrid was a candidate to hold the 2012 Summer Olympics of the 2012 Modern Era, a candidate promoted during the tenure of Mayor José María Álvarez of the Manzano ​ and continued by his successor, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón. The candidate's logo was designed by Javier Mariscal. ​ the IOC selected the five official candidate cities for the organization of the 2012 Olympic Games in the Swiss city of Lausanne on May 18, 2004: Madrid, Paris, London, New York and Moscow. On 6 July 2005, the IOC announced the outcome of the city election to organize the 2012 Olympic Games, the one chosen was London, leaving the city of Madrid third; a member of the IOC later told the press that he was wrong to mark his vote, so that Madrid was eliminated in the penultimate vote. ​ ​ However, during the selection process for the 2012 Olympic Games, there was a minority social movement opposing the candidacy, which they accused of favoring real estate speculation and increasing the city's already high debt. ​ ​

JJOO Candidature 2016 - Spanish Olympic Committee renewed on May 30, 2007 the city's Olympic candidacy for the 2016 Olympic Games. ​ On June 4, 2008 Madrid was shortlisted as one of the candidates for the organization of the 2016 Olympic Games with Chicago, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro. The project he submitted was based on the previous candidate's best bid, which allowed him to be the second most rated city, slightly behind Tokyo. Finally, on 2 October 2009, the city of Rio de Janeiro was elected, despite having in principle a general technical assessment lower than that of the other three cities. ​ ​

Candidatura JJOO from 2020 - Madrid again presented a candidacy to host the 2020 Olympics. The final vote on September 7, 2013, Madrid, Istanbul and Tokyo attended. In the first round of voting, Madrid and Istanbul had the same votes after Tokyo. In the run-off vote, Madrid was eliminated. In the final vote, Tokyo won by far.

The titles, honors and decorations, which, on an official basis, are awarded by the Madrid City Council in order to reward special merits, benefits or extraordinary services, are as follows: title of Predilect Son or Adoptive Son of Madrid, Medal of Honor of Madrid and Medal of Madrid in its three categories of Gold, Silver and Bronce. ​

The first and highest distinctions granted by the Madrid City Council, ​ are those of Son Predilecto, for prominent citizens born in Madrid (José Ortega y Gasset or Placid Domingo among others) ​ and Son Adoptivo, for prominent people not born in Madrid (Juan Carlos I, Adolfo Suárez, ​ Josep Tarradellas, ​ Camilo José Cela, Mario Vargas Llosa or the most recent Rafael Nadal). ​

The city of Madrid actively participates in the twinning initiative of cities promoted, among others, by the European Union. It has also signed many agreements, protocols, minutes and declarations of cooperation with other cities.

Agreements and minutes of twinning

Twinning agreements signed:

Signed twinning acts: ​

• Rabat, Morocco, 1988. ​
• Tripoli, Libya, 1988. ​

Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities

Madrid is a member of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities (UCCI), ​ which published a declaration of multiple and supportive twinning in 1982 between the following cities:

Predecessor: Dublin	European Capital of Culture 1,992	Successor: Antwerp
Predecessor: Havana	Ibero-American Capital of Culture 1,998	Successor: La Paz