Provinces of Spain

The layout of Spain's provinces closely follows the pattern of the territorial division of the country carried out in 1833. The only major change of provincial borders since that time has been the subdivision of the Canary Islands into two provinces rather than one.

Historically, the provinces served mainly as transmission belts for policies enacted in Madrid, as Spain was a highly centralised state for most of its modern history. The importance of the provinces has declined since the adoption of the system of autonomous communities in the period of the Spanish transition to democracy. They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections and as geographical references: for instance in postal addresses and telephone codes. National media will also frequently use the province to disambiguate small towns or communities whose names occur frequently throughout Spain.

A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Valladolid province rather than the autonomous community of Castile and León. The provinces were the "building-blocks" from which the autonomous communities were created. Consequently, no province is divided between more than one of these communities.

Most of the provinces—with the exceptions of Álava, Asturias, Biscay, Cantabria, Gipuzkoa, the Balearic Islands, La Rioja, and Navarre—are named after their principal town. Only two capitals of autonomous communities—Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia—are not also the capitals of provinces.

Seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each: Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Navarre. These are sometimes referred to as "uniprovincial" communities. Ceuta, Melilla, and the plazas de soberanía are not part of any provinces.

A map of Spain's provinces. Names are shown in Spanish.

The table below lists the provinces of Spain. For each, the capital city is given, together with an indication of the autonomous community to which it belongs and a link to a list of municipalities in the province. The names of the provinces and their capitals are ordered alphabetically according to the form in which they appear in the main Wikipedia articles describing them. Unless otherwise indicated, their Spanish-language names are the same; locally valid names in Spain's other co-official languages (Basque, Catalan, which is officially called Valencian in the Valencian Community, Galician) are also indicated where they differ.

• "The Spanish Constitution" (PDF). Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado. 1978. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
• "Local Government Act (Organic Law 7/1985)" (in Spanish). Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado. 1985. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
• Zafra Víctor, Manuel (2004). "Reflexiones sobre el gobierno local" [Reflections on local government] (PDF). Anuario del Gobierno Local (in Spanish). Barcelona: Institut de Dret Públic (1). ISBN 84-609-5895-7. ISSN 2013-4924. Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 9 June 2022.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
• "Local Government in Spain" (PDF). Ministry of Public Administration. Retrieved 11 June 2022.

• Political divisions of Spain
• Local government in Spain
• Autonomous communities of Spain
• Comarcas of Spain
• ISO 3166-2:ES
• List of provincial flags of Spain
• List of Spanish provinces by area
• List of Spanish provinces by population
• Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Provinces of Spain.

• Maps of the provinces of Spain
• List of municipalities of Spain listed by province from the Spanish INE (National Statistics Institute) (in Spanish)