Andalusia Geography, Climate & Nature

Andalusia covers 87,597 square kilometres in eight provinces (Almería, Cádiz, Cordoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville), Spain's southernmost and second-largest autonomous community, and its most populous with 8,733,535 people. It borders Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha to the north, Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea to the east, Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar to the south; the British territory of Gibraltar shares a land border with the province of Cádiz.

Two mountain systems frame the region: the Sierra Morena in the north, separating Andalusia from the plains of Extremadura and Castile, and the Baetic System in the south, whose Sierra Nevada subrange holds Mulhacén at 3,478 metres, the highest point on the Iberian Peninsula. Between them runs the Baetic Depression, the valley of the Guadalquivir, Andalusia's principal river. The region spans strikingly different climates within short distances: the Tabernas Desert in Almería is Europe's only true desert, while the Sierra de Grazalema in Cádiz records the highest rainfall ever measured in Iberia. Doñana National Park, where the Guadalquivir meets the Atlantic, protects one of Europe's great wetlands.

Andalusia's climate is broadly Mediterranean, hot and dry in summer and mild and wetter in winter, but the range across the region is extreme. The Tabernas Desert in Almería is Europe's only true desert, receiving almost no rain, while at the other extreme the Sierra de Grazalema in Cádiz, part of what locals call "wet Andalusia," recorded in 1963 the highest annual rainfall ever measured anywhere in Iberia.

Inland, the Guadalquivir valley traps summer heat: Seville and Cordoba routinely see daily maximums above 40°C in July and August, among the hottest reliably recorded temperatures in Europe. The coasts, tempered by the Atlantic and Mediterranean, run several degrees cooler in summer and mild through winter, rarely near freezing. The Sierra Nevada is the exception, cold enough to support skiing above Granada well into spring, with temperatures some 12°C lower than the city below. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons region-wide.

Andalusia's ecological range runs from Europe's only true desert to one of its great wetlands. Doñana National Park, where the Guadalquivir delta meets the Atlantic in marshes, shallow streams and sand dunes, was established as a nature reserve in 1969 after the World Wildlife Fund and the Spanish government purchased land to protect it; its biodiversity is unique in Europe, twinned with France's Camargue, and it shelters thousands of migratory birds from Europe and Africa alongside fallow deer, Spanish red deer, wild boar and Egyptian mongoose.

The Sierra Nevada is a separate biodiversity hotspot: a mountain range that has recorded 2,100 species of vascular plants, 80 of them endemic, across ecosystems that shift from Mediterranean evergreen forest at lower elevations to subalpine grassland near Mulhacén's 3,478-metre summit. The Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, Iberia's wettest recorded spot, protects a landscape of cork oak and native pine unusual for such southern latitude. Between these extremes, the Tabernas Desert in Almería is arid enough to have doubled for the American West in films.

The Iberian lynx, endemic to the Iberian Peninsula and one of the world's rarest cats, came back from the edge of extinction in Andalusia: only 94 individuals survived in two isolated subpopulations here in 2002, and sustained conservation work, habitat restoration, rabbit restocking and reintroduction, has raised the total Iberian lynx population to some 2,021 by 2024, enough to see it reclassified from endangered to vulnerable. Doñana National Park remains one of its two core strongholds, alongside Sierra Morena.

Doñana's marshes and dunes also shelter the endangered Spanish imperial eagle, one of the rarest raptors in the world, plus fallow deer, Spanish red deer, wild boar and Egyptian mongoose, and serve as a critical stopover for thousands of European and African migratory birds each year. The Sierra Nevada's high grasslands and forests hold their own endemic species among 2,100 recorded plants, and the Andalusian horse, a distinct breed recognised since the 15th century, remains a living cultural symbol bred across the region's ranches.