Castellón de la Plana, Castellón: population and climate
Castellón, Valencian Community · 183,711 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)
Living in Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana
Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana is a mid-sized city of 183,711 inhabitants 5 km from the sea in Castellón (Valencian Community), with cool winters and hot summers (January nights 6.5°C, August afternoons 30.8°C). The nearest international school (International English School Of Castellón, British curriculum) is 0.9 km away. Year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US leave from Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (CDT), 27 km away. There is a public general hospital in town (Hospital General Universitario de Castellón, 521 beds). Against that, August is humid (dew point 19.5°C), so the heat feels sticky. Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 31.7°C and the number of warm nights at 85 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 Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana
Castellón de la Plana, in Spanish, or Castelló de la Plana, in Valencian, is the capital city of the province of Castellón, in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is located near the eastern coastline of the Iberian Peninsula by the Mediterranean Sea. The main urban core lies some kilometres inland while the detached district of Grau was built around the Port. The Desert de les Palmes mountain range rises to the north.
From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →
Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (CDT), 27 km, 18 destinations
- Direct to Amsterdam
- Valencia airport, 67 km (year-round)
- Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)
- Castellón airport, 27 km (year-round)
- Direct to London
- Castellón airport, 27 km (year-round)
- Direct to Paris
- Valencia airport, 67 km (year-round)
- Direct to Frankfurt
- Valencia airport, 67 km (year-round)
- Direct to the US
- Barcelona airport, 230 km (year-round)
- Train station
- Castelló de la Plana (1.3 km)
- Fastest train to Madrid
- 3 h 03
- Fastest train to Barcelona
- 1 h 55
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 General Universitario de Castellón (in town, 521 beds)
- Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)
- Hospital General Universitario de Castellón (in town, 521 beds)
- Nearest private general hospital
- Hospital Rey D. Jaime (in town, 96 beds)
- General hospitals within 25 km
- 4
- Waiting time for planned surgery (Valencian Community)
- 88 days on average; 16.1% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
- Waiting time for a first specialist visit
- 95 days on average; 53.7% 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
- INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL OF CASTELLÓN (British), Castellón de la Plana, 0.9 km
- International schools within 25 km
- 2
- Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)
- British 0.9 km · American 47 km · French 62 km · German 63 km
Within 30 km (up to five):
| School | Curriculum | Levels in the register | Where | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL OF CASTELLÓN | British | infant, primary, secondary | Castellón de la Plana | 0.9 km |
| BRITISH SCHOOL OF VILA-REAL | British | infant, primary, secondary | Vila-Real | 8.6 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
- +7.0% in ten years (171,669 in 2015, 183,711 in 2025)
- Age
- 19.4% aged 65 or over, 15.3% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
- Local income
- 14,696 € net per person per year (2023), 98% of the Spanish average; median 19,250 € per adult-equivalent
- Foreign residents
- 16.8% of all residents; 4.8% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
- Largest nationalities
- Romanian 8.8%, Moroccan 1.3%, Colombian 1.2%, Venezuelan 0.7%; all EU citizens 9.9% (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
- 86 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)
- 71 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
- 43 pharmacies
- 16 doctors, clinics or hospitals
- 139 cafés, bars and restaurants
- 84 parks and gardens
- 65 bus stops
- 16 libraries, theatres, cinemas, cultural centres
- 1 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
- 393 (0.43% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 1.0 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
- Blue Flag beaches
- 3 in town; 23 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
- Jucar
- Reservoirs now
- 51.9% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 40.0%
- Worst week 2016-2025
- 24.9% full (2017-12-05)
- Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025
- 37% 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 | 15.7 | 16.5 | 18.8 | 21.1 | 24.2 | 28.0 | 30.5 | 30.8 | 27.9 | 24.0 | 19.2 | 16.2 |
| Average nightly low, °C | 6.5 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 11.2 | 14.5 | 18.4 | 21.3 | 21.7 | 18.7 | 15.1 | 10.3 | 7.6 |
| Rain, mm | 38 | 26 | 45 | 34 | 36 | 19 | 10 | 20 | 60 | 54 | 53 | 40 |
| Rainy days (1 mm or more) | 3.6 | 3.1 | 3.7 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 2.6 | 1.7 | 2.5 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.0 |
| Sunshine, hours per day | 5.9 | 6.8 | 7.3 | 8.4 | 9.4 | 10.6 | 11.0 | 9.7 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 6.1 | 5.5 |
| Humidity, % | 64 | 62 | 62 | 60 | 60 | 59 | 61 | 64 | 65 | 67 | 64 | 66 |
| Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 7.1 | 19.9 | 22.2 | 5.3 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The year in numbers
- Köppen climate class
- BSh: Hot semi-arid
- Summer mugginess (August average dew point)
- 19.5°C – oppressive
- Typical hottest day of the year
- 36.1°C
- Typical coldest night of the year
- 1.2°C
- Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F
- 142 a year (estimate)
- Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F
- 56 a year
- Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F
- 1 a year (estimate)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 68 a year (estimate)
- Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)
- 0 a year
- Overcast days
- 64 a year
- Average humidity
- 63%
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 CASTELLÓ - ALMASSORA (8500A), 4.3 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.
Around 2055 (projection)
- August average high
- 31.7°C: +0.9 °C compared with today (models range from 0.4 °C to 2.0 °C)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 85 a year, +17 (models: +9 to +28)
- Frost nights
- 0 a year (+0)
- Rainy days (1 mm or more)
- 38 a year, -5 (models: -10 to +2)
- Rain amount
- -7% over the year: summer -23%, winter -3%
- Sunlight reaching the ground
- +0.1% (models: -0.5% to +0.7%); 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 Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana?
Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana is in the province of Castellón (Valencian Community), Spain, 5 km from the sea. The nearest airport is Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (CDT), 27 km away.
How many people live in Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana?
183,711 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +7.0% in ten years.
What is the climate of Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana?
January afternoons average 15.7°C and nights 6.5°C; August afternoons 30.8°C. 8.0 hours of sunshine a day and 43 rainy days a year (AEMET 1991-2020).
Is Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana safe?
Recorded conventional crime in Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana was 34.6 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, about average for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 2.28 per 1,000.
How hot is Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana in summer?
August afternoons average 30.8°C (1991-2020), with 68 nights a year above 20 °C and 1 days of 35 °C or more.
How cold is Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana in winter?
January afternoons average 15.7°C and January nights 6.5°C, with 0 frost nights a year.
Is there a hospital in Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana?
Yes: Hospital General Universitario de Castellón, a public general hospital with 521 beds. Planned surgery in Valencian Community waits 88 days on average.
Can you fly direct from Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana to Amsterdam or London all year?
Yes. Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (CDT) (27 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.
What does it cost to rent or buy in Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana?
A typical apartment (94 m²) rented for 500 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 1,462 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 53.7% in five years.
Nearby and similar towns
- Nearest towns in this comparison
- Almassora (Castellón, 5 km), Vila-real (Castellón, 8 km), Borriana/Burriana (Castellón, 11 km), Onda (Castellón, 20 km), La Vall d'Uixó (Castellón, 25 km)
- Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)
- Elx/Elche (Alicante), Huelva (Huelva), Reus (Tarragona), Cartagena (Murcia), Tarragona (Tarragona)
Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.
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