A Manzanares fortress that became Spain's permanent court
Madrid is Spain’s capital and largest city, with over 3.4 million residents in 2025 and a metro near 6.8 million—the EU’s second city after Berlin. It sits about 660 metres up on the Manzanares. Philip II fixed the royal court here in June 1561, locking in capital status.
Emir Muhammad I raised a ninth-century fortress to shield Toledo; Christians under Alfonso VI took the town in 1083 or 1085. A 1202 charter and later regimiento reforms shaped Castilian municipal life; courts met here as early as 1309. Population leapt from about 4,060 in 1530 to 37,500 by 1594, then from roughly 18,000 when Philip arrived to 80,000 by 1598—save a 1601–06 dip when the court briefly tried Valladolid.
Bourbon builders added the Royal Palace, tapestry works, and academies; Charles III earned the nickname “best mayor of Madrid” for sewers, lamps, and cemeteries outside the walls. The Dos de Mayo rising of 1808 against French troops helped ignite the Peninsular War. Railways in the later nineteenth century modernised a service-and-finance economy; electric street lighting arrived in the 1890s. By the early twentieth century population topped 850,000 as new suburbs absorbed workers.
Today the municipality spans 606 square kilometres and anchors an alpha world city with Telefónica, Iberia, BBVA, and major Spanish banking. The Golden Triangle of Art along the Paseo del Prado—Prado, Reina Sofía, and Thyssen-Bornemisza—holds UNESCO recognition beside Retiro Park (founded 1631), the Plaza Mayor, and the Royal Palace. In 2023 Madrid ranked second among Spanish destinations with about 5.76 million international visitors, led by guests from the United States, Italy, France, Britain, and Mexico.
Source: Madrid
