Alcalá de Henares, Madrid: population, climate, prices
Madrid, Madrid · 203,208 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)
Living in Alcalá de Henares
Alcalá de Henares is a mid-sized city of 203,208 inhabitants inland in Madrid, with cold winters and very hot summers (January nights 0.7°C, August afternoons 33.4°C). Summer air is dry (August dew point 9.8°C), so the heat is easier to bear than on the coast. Madrid is 0 h 01 min away by train. Public waiting lists in Madrid are among the shortest in Spain (50 days for planned surgery). Against that, winter nights are cold (0.7°C in January, 48 frost nights a year); summers are hot (33.4°C on an average August afternoon, 29 days of 35 °C or more a year). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 34.7°C and the number of warm nights at 23 a year.
Each sentence is chosen by where the town ranks among the 333 places compared on that measure (top or bottom 20%); the numbers are the ones in the sections below, from the sources named there.
About Alcalá de Henares
Alcalá de Henares is a Spanish municipality of the Community of Madrid. Housing is primarily located on the north bank of the Henares. As of 2025, it has a population of 203,208, making it the region's third-most populated municipality.
From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →
Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD), 18 km, 68,179,054 passengers in 2025, 242 destinations
- Direct to Amsterdam
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Direct to London
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Direct to Paris
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Direct to Frankfurt
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Direct to the US
- Madrid airport, 18 km (year-round)
- Train station
- Alcalá de Henares (0.8 km)
- Fastest train to Madrid
- 0 h 01
- Fastest train to Barcelona
- no direct train
Distances are straight-line. Flights as listed in airport route tables on 4 Oct 2026; train times from Renfe's timetable (Iryo and Ouigo not included).
Healthcare
- Nearest public general hospital
- Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias (in town, 507 beds)
- Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)
- Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias (in town, 507 beds)
- Nearest private general hospital
- Hospital Quirón Salud Valle del Henares (11 km away, in Torrejón de Ardoz, 79 beds)
- General hospitals within 25 km
- 10
- Waiting time for planned surgery (Madrid)
- 50 days on average; 0.8% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
- Waiting time for a first specialist visit
- 68 days on average; 63.5% wait more than 60 days (Spain: 102 days)
Ministry of Health, National Hospital Catalogue 2025 (situation on 31 Dec 2024); general hospitals only. Distances are straight-line to the hospital's municipality. Residents registered in Spain use public hospitals; non-EU applicants for some visas must have private health insurance. Waiting times are for the whole region (public health service, 31 Dec 2025), as reported by each region to the Ministry of Health (SISLE-SNS); private insurance usually avoids most of the wait.
International schools
- Nearest international school
- MV ALCALA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (EE.UU) (American), Alcalá de Henares, 1.4 km
- International schools within 25 km
- 27
- Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)
- British 12 km · American 1.4 km · French 23 km · German 27 km · Nordic 21 km · Dutch 25 km
Within 30 km (up to five):
| School | Curriculum | Levels in the register | Where | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MV ALCALA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (EE.UU) | American | not listed | Alcalá de Henares | 1.4 km |
| ALCALA INTERNATIONAL MONTESSORI SCHOOL (EE.UU.) | American | not listed | Alcalá de Henares | 1.6 km |
| COMPLUTUM MONTESSORI SCHOOL | curriculum not stated | not listed | Alcalá de Henares | 1.6 km |
| EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN ACADEMY (EE.UU) | American | not listed | Camarma de Esteruelas | 8.1 km |
| COLEGIO BRITANICO MONTFORT (BRITANICO) | British | not listed | Loeches | 12 km |
Ministry of Education, register of non-university schools (RCD), October 2026: every school authorised to teach a foreign curriculum in Spain, without the business, arts and hairdressing schools in the same list and without schools for one nationality (Japanese, Libyan, Iraqi, Russian, Panamanian). Curriculum as labelled in the register or clear from the school's name; levels as listed in the register, which leaves them out for some schools. Straight-line distance from the town centre. We do not rate schools: visit, and ask about accreditation and fees.
Who lives here
- Population trend
- +2.2% in ten years (198,750 in 2015, 203,208 in 2025)
- Age
- 19.0% aged 65 or over, 14.8% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
- Local income
- 15,598 € net per person per year (2023), 104% of the Spanish average; median 20,650 € per adult-equivalent
- Foreign residents
- 16.1% of all residents; 3.4% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
- Largest nationalities
- Romanian 6.5%, Venezuelan 1.0%, Colombian 0.9%, Ukrainian 0.7%, Moroccan 0.6%; all EU citizens 8.6% (share of all residents, 1 Jan 2022; the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and the Nordic countries are not published per town)
INE: population register (Padrón) and household income atlas. Local income is a rough guide to local prices and affluence; Spain publishes no official cost-of-living index for towns.
Within a 10-minute walk of the centre
- Everyday essentials on foot
- 6 of 6 ✓ 15+ food shops ✓ 3+ pharmacies ✓ 25+ cafés, bars or restaurants ✓ 2+ parks ✓ 3+ bus stops ✓ 2+ libraries, theatres, cinemas or cultural centres
- Lively centre
- 78 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)
- 35 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
- 10 pharmacies
- 10 doctors, clinics or hospitals
- 113 cafés, bars and restaurants
- 82 parks and gardens
- 67 bus stops
- 8 libraries, theatres, cinemas, cultural centres
- 2 market places
Counted in OpenStreetMap within 800 m of the town centre, taken as the point OpenStreetMap marks as the town's centre, moved at most 500 m to the busiest nearby spot (for a few spread-out municipalities without such a point: the busiest spot near the official coordinate). OpenStreetMap is kept by volunteers: very complete in most Spanish towns, thinner in some. “Everyday essentials” only asks whether the basics are there, so a small town can score 6 of 6; “lively centre” ranks each count among all 333 places and averages them, so it mostly reflects size. Large municipalities with several centres (Lorca, Oleiros, Ames…) can score low because their official centre is a small village.
Holiday lets and beaches
- Tourist apartments
- 241 (0.30% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 0.5 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
- Blue Flag beaches
- nearest in San Martín de Valdeiglesias, 89 km; 0 within 30 km
Tourist apartments: INE count of homes listed on Airbnb, Booking and Vrbo. A high share means busy summers and pressure on rents. Blue Flag 2026 (ADEAC): beaches meeting water-quality, safety and service standards; this includes some lake and river beaches. Distances are straight-line between town centres.
Water
- River basin
- Tajo
- Reservoirs now
- 54.9% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 47.0%
- Worst week 2016-2025
- 34.4% full (2019-10-15)
- Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025
- 9% of all weeks
Ministry for the Ecological Transition, weekly hydrological bulletin: all reservoirs over 5 hm³ in the basin. Low reservoirs are what led to drought restrictions in Catalonia (2023-24) and Andalusia (2022-24). Some basins (Segura) also rely on transfers and desalination, so their reservoir level alone overstates the risk of taps running dry.
What the rankings say
Not named in the rankings we track.
Climate
● average daily high ● average nightly low ■ rainy days (1 mm or more). These are 1991-2020 averages, not record temperatures: a hot spell will be warmer and a cold night colder than these values.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average daily high, °C | 11.1 | 13.2 | 17.1 | 19.5 | 24.1 | 30.3 | 34.0 | 33.4 | 28.0 | 21.5 | 14.9 | 11.5 |
| Average nightly low, °C | 0.7 | 1.2 | 3.8 | 6.2 | 9.9 | 14.4 | 17.3 | 17.2 | 13.3 | 9.1 | 4.3 | 1.4 |
| Rain, mm | 29 | 28 | 32 | 41 | 44 | 22 | 10 | 9 | 24 | 56 | 47 | 34 |
| Rainy days (1 mm or more) | 5.1 | 4.2 | 4.9 | 6.5 | 6.3 | 3.6 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 3.6 | 6.9 | 6.3 | 5.6 |
| Sunshine, hours per day | 5.0 | 6.2 | 6.5 | 7.8 | 9.3 | 11.2 | 12.1 | 11.1 | 8.4 | 6.5 | 5.1 | 4.1 |
| Humidity, % | 77 | 68 | 61 | 58 | 52 | 41 | 35 | 36 | 48 | 65 | 75 | 79 |
| Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 3.8 | 17.1 | 26.5 | 26.2 | 11.2 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The year in numbers
- Köppen climate class
- BSk: Cold semi-arid
- Summer mugginess (August average dew point)
- 9.8°C – dry, comfortable
- Typical hottest day of the year
- 39.6°C
- Typical coldest night of the year
- -6.5°C
- Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F
- 134 a year (estimate)
- Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F
- 86 a year
- Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F
- 29 a year (estimate)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 10 a year (estimate)
- Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)
- 48 a year
- Overcast days
- 64 a year
- Average humidity
- 58%
Dew point measures how sticky the air feels: under 13 °C (55 °F) feels dry, 16-18 °C (61-64 °F) muggy, over 18 °C oppressive. For comparison, Davis, California (also Köppen Csa) has a summer dew point of about 11 °C. "Typical hottest day" is the 1991-2020 average of each year's single hottest day. Estimates are counted from daily satellite data adjusted to this place's averages; checked against AEMET's own 30 °C counts they are usually within 4 days a year.
1991-2020 averages, AEMET station TORREJÓN DE ARDOZ (3175), 6.7 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.
Around 2055 (projection)
- August average high
- 34.7°C: +1.3 °C compared with today (models range from 0.5 °C to 2.7 °C)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 23 a year, +13 (models: +2 to +23)
- Frost nights
- 42 a year (-6)
- Rainy days (1 mm or more)
- 50 a year, -5 (models: -14 to -1)
- Rain amount
- -5% over the year: summer -24%, winter +4%
- Sunlight reaching the ground
- +0.8% (models: -0.2% to +2.0%); no official sunshine-hours projection exists
Spain's official climate scenarios (Escenarios-PNACC 2024, AEMET regionalisation of 11 global climate models, ~5 km grid), middle emissions scenario SSP2-4.5: average change from 2011-2040 to 2041-2070, added to today's 1991-2020 values above. The range shows the lowest and highest of the 11 models. Rain: the same models regionalised by CSIC (DeepESD). Sunlight: EURO-CORDEX regional models (RCP4.5). A projection, not a forecast. Read: Spain around 2055, region by region →
Questions people ask
Where is Alcalá de Henares?
Alcalá de Henares is in the province of Madrid, Spain, inland. The nearest airport is Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD), 18 km away.
How many people live in Alcalá de Henares?
203,208 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +2.2% in ten years.
What is the climate of Alcalá de Henares?
January afternoons average 11.1°C and nights 0.7°C; August afternoons 33.4°C. 7.8 hours of sunshine a day and 56 rainy days a year (AEMET 1991-2020).
Is Alcalá de Henares safe?
Recorded conventional crime in Alcalá de Henares was 37.9 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, about average for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 0.93 per 1,000.
How hot is Alcalá de Henares in summer?
August afternoons average 33.4°C (1991-2020), with 10 nights a year above 20 °C and 29 days of 35 °C or more.
How cold is Alcalá de Henares in winter?
January afternoons average 11.1°C and January nights 0.7°C, with 48 frost nights a year.
Is there a hospital in Alcalá de Henares?
Yes: Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, a public general hospital with 507 beds. Planned surgery in Madrid waits 50 days on average.
Can you fly direct from Alcalá de Henares to Amsterdam or London all year?
Yes. Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD) (18 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.
What does it cost to rent or buy in Alcalá de Henares?
A typical apartment (74 m²) rented for 698 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 2,773 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 67.6% in five years.
Nearby and similar towns
- Nearest towns in this comparison
- Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid, 11 km), Azuqueca de Henares (Guadalajara, 12 km), Mejorada del Campo (Madrid, 14 km), Paracuellos de Jarama (Madrid, 14 km), San Fernando de Henares (Madrid, 16 km)
- Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)
- Fuenlabrada (Madrid), Getafe (Madrid), Móstoles (Madrid), Leganés (Madrid), Granada (Granada)
Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.