Daniel Almazán

Population · Europe · 2021

Thirty countries · one grid

Empty country,
dense country?

Spain is sparsely populated. But that does not mean Spaniards live at low density.

Spain’s population density—people / km²
01

The familiar number

Spain looks sparse.

Divide the census population by the country’s land surface and Spain sits in the lower half of this 30-country comparison. The calculation is correct, but it gives every square kilometre equal weight.

Conventional density · people per km²

02

Population on a grid

From an average to a pattern.

The harmonised census grid places the population into the same one-kilometre squares. Spatial patterns emerge.

Population in one-kilometre grid squares across the 30 countries in the Eurostat dataset, with the densest cells concentrated around major cities and urban corridors.
Population per 1-km cell 01–910–99100–9991,000–4,9995,000+
The map covers the EU-27, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It does not represent every European country.
03

Populated territory

People appear in just — of Spain’s land.

Only Norway and Bulgaria have less populated land than Spain. Most of Spain is empty.

Share of land in populated 1 km cells
04

The resident’s viewpoint

Average density = —.
Median resident’s cell density = —.

From the resident’s viewpoint, Spain becomes the densest country in the comparison. The contrast separates density measured across the land from the density where people actually live.

Country average → population-weighted median 1 km density
The median is the grid-cell population of the middle resident after cells are weighted by their populations. The scale is logarithmic.
05

So little land?

Half of Spain’s population fits into — of its land.

Even 90% of the population lives in just — of the total territory—the smallest share in the comparison.

How much land contains the selected share of residents?

Each square represents 0.25% of national land. Cells are filled from the densest areas first; a partly filled square shows the remaining fraction.

06

One population, many densities

Where does each country’s population sit on the density scale?

These distributions show the share—or number—of residents living in each 1,000-person density band. Compare the focus countries, then open the view to all 30.

Y axis
Countries
Grid cells are grouped into 1,000-person bands; the final band contains cells with 20,000 or more residents. Hover, focus or tap a line to inspect a country.

07

Center, periphery and void

Sparse territory. Concentrated settlement.

Madrid forms a dense island in the centre. Barcelona and Valencia extend the Mediterranean chain; concentrations also trace the Basque and Cantabrian north, Galicia and Andalusia. Between them lies a broad, lightly populated interior.

One-kilometre population grid of Spain, including a Canary Islands inset, showing dense cells around Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, the north coast, Galicia and Andalusia and sparse cells across much of the interior.
Population per 1-km cell 01–910–99100–9991,000–4,9995,000+
Each colour represents the published usual-resident population in a nominal 1 km square.

The useful distinction

Spain has a low density of people across land—and a high density of people around other people.

Method & limits

Source. Eurostat/GISCO Census Grid 2021 V3.0, released 30 May 2026. The analysis uses final data reported by 30 EU and EFTA countries in ETRS89-LAEA (EPSG:3035).

Borders and coasts. Country-specific source files assign each country’s population and land contribution to shared cells. Reported LAND_SURFACE, rather than full-cell counts, defines national territory.

Confidentiality. Values marked confidential or unavailable are never changed to zero. Geometryless unallocated population is reported in QA and excluded from spatial distributions.

Interpretation. Cell population is used as nominal 1 km density. This measures residential concentration, not built form, dwelling crowding, daytime population or the area people physically use.