Barcelona

Barcelona is a big city in Spain.

It is beside the Mediterranean Sea. Mountains curve around the back of the city. Many people there speak two languages, Catalan and Spanish.

Barcelona is in northeastern Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea, about 150 kilometers south of the border with France. It is the capital of Catalonia, a region with its own language, Catalan, and it is Spain's main port on the Mediterranean.

About 1.7 million people lived in Barcelona in 2025. The city sits on a plain between two rivers, with a curve of mountains behind it and the sea in front. In 1862 the writer Hans Christian Andersen called it the "Paris of Spain."

Barcelona is a city, seaport and capital of both Barcelona province and the autonomous community of Catalonia, 150 km south of the French border. Facing the Mediterranean to the southeast, it lies on a plain bounded by the Besòs and Llobregat rivers, the rocky outcrop of Montjuïc (173 m) and a semicircle of mountains topped by Tibidabo (512 m).

Britannica calls it Spain's major Mediterranean port and commercial center, famed for its individuality, cultural interest and physical beauty. The city covers 98 km² (metropolitan area 3,235 km²) and had 1,732,066 registered residents on January 1, 2025. Since the late 1970s, official recognition of the Catalan language and regional self-government have revitalized cultural life; most school courses are taught in Spanish and Catalan.

Barcelona has some very unusual buildings.

The architect Antoni Gaudí designed many of them. One is a huge church with tall, pointy towers. It has been under construction for more than 140 years! A park he made has a reptile covered in colorful tiles.

The architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) gave Barcelona some of its most famous buildings. The biggest is the Sagrada Família, a huge church whose cornerstone was laid in 1882. Gaudí never expected it to be finished in his lifetime. On February 20, 2026, its central tower reached its full height of 172.5 meters. It was already the world's tallest church, and work continues.

UNESCO protects seven of Gaudí's works, including Park Güell, with its colorful tiled sculptures, and the houses Casa Milà and Casa Batlló. In the old Gothic Quarter stand the cathedral and medieval palaces.

UNESCO's "Works of Antoni Gaudí" (inscribed 1984) groups seven buildings: Park Güell, Palau Güell, Casa Milà (La Pedrera), Casa Vicens, the Nativity Façade and Crypt of the Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló and the Crypt of the Colònia Güell. UNESCO calls Gaudí the most representative and outstanding of the Modernista architects, drawing on Catalan traditions and modern industrial technique.

The Sagrada Família's cornerstone was laid on March 19, 1882; only one of its towers was finished when Gaudí died in 1926. On February 20, 2026 a cross was placed on its central tower, bringing the basilica to its maximum height of 172.5 m; it had become the world's tallest church the year before, and completion is still years away. The Gothic Quarter, between the Ramblas and the Via Laietana, holds the cathedral, the 14th–15th-century Palace of the Generalitat and stretches of the Roman walls.

In the middle of Barcelona is a wide street for walking called the Ramblas.

Stalls there sell flowers and books. On April 23, the city celebrates books. There are museums of art, a zoo and beaches by the sea.

The Ramblas, a string of wide, tree-lined boulevards, run down to the port, with stalls selling flowers, books and newspapers and artists drawing on the pavement. Every April 23, the Fiesta del Libro, a book festival, fills the city.

Barcelona has many museums, including ones for the painters Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso, and a maritime museum with a full-size copy of an old galley ship. The Liceu Opera House was founded in 1847. The University of Barcelona dates from 1450, and there is a zoo in Ciutadella Park.

Barcelona is a major publishing center for the Spanish-speaking world, and its April 23 Fiesta del Libro is a major event for the book trade. Culture ranges from the Liceu Opera House (1847, rebuilt after a 1994 fire), the Romea Theatre for Catalan drama and the Music Palace to the National Art Museum of Catalonia (formed 1990), the Joan Miró Foundation, the Picasso Museum and the maritime museum's full-size galley replica; Frank Gehry's copper fish sculpture marks the Olympic Port.

The University of Barcelona, founded in 1450, is one of seven universities. Up to a third of residents were born outside Catalonia. The service sector provides about four-fifths of jobs, alongside chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and electronics, and the Barcelona Fair has been held at Montjuïc since 1929. The Ramblas, with stalls of flowers, books and newspapers, lead down to the port and the Columbus monument.