
In this guide

10 Different Spanish Cities
I chose 10 Spanish cities to compare, based on their popularity and cost of living. The cities include, Zaragoza, Alicante, Seville, Santander, Bilbao, Valencia, Malaga, Barcelona, and Madrid.
Characteristics Compared
The characteristics I chose have to do with:
- quality of life,
- ease of assimilation,
- geographic location,
- ability for international travel within Europe and to the United States,
- fast train access for travel within Spain,
- distance to the major cities of Madrid and Barcelona, and
- distance to the beach and mountains.
I have also included the cost of living in a three bedroom home in the city center of each location, the language of instruction in local schools, and whether or not the city is accessible.
School Characteristics of each city
Important for families with kids, I have also considered:
- he existence of a variety of school schedules within the given city,
- Spanish Language Schools, for the ability to study the language, and
- immersion opportunities
Immersion means that there is not an incredibly high level of english, and that you will be positioned to learn the Spanish well.
For future and current considerations, I included:
- whether not each city has a growing economy, which means that it is statistically above the Spanish average.
If you have a characteristic that you would like for me to include, please leave a comment or send me a message or email. If you have an argument for a point for a city, or something does not make since to you, I am willing to hear it and will consider the adjustment.
A table of 10 Cities in Spain and their differences, according to 20 characteristics that I chose based on popular questions and seaches.

Location of the Spanish cities, relative to one another, and their distribution within the country.

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Written by
Founder and writer, The Burgos Experience
Ashley Burgos founded The Burgos Experience and writes its guides. An American mom of two boys, she left the United States with her family in 2018, lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, and moved to Zaragoza, Spain, in 2021, with a stretch in Madrid along the way. Everything she writes about she has done herself: four rental leases, at least three rounds of Spanish school applications, the Non-Lucrative Visa, a Spanish driving test, and family trips across Spain, Europe and Morocco.
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