← All places

Córdoba, Spain: population, climate, prices

Córdoba, Andalusia · 323,262 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)

Living in Córdoba

Córdoba is a city of 323,262 inhabitants inland in Córdoba (Andalusia), with cold winters and very hot summers (January nights 3.5°C, August afternoons 36.8°C). The nearest international school (The British School Of Córdoba, British curriculum) is 3.1 km away. It is one of the sunniest places in Spain: 8.2 hours of sunshine a day on average. Year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US leave from Seville Airport (SVQ), 111 km away. Against that, summers are hot (36.8°C on an average August afternoon, 66 days of 35 °C or more a year); public waiting lists in Andalusia are long (173 days on average for planned surgery). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 38.0°C and the number of warm nights at 47 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 Córdoba

Córdoba ( KOR-də-bə; Spanish: [ˈkoɾðoβa] ), or sometimes Cordova ( KOR-də-və), is a city in Andalusia, Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. With a population of 324,902 as of 2024, it is the 12th-largest city in Spain and the 3rd-largest in Andalusia.

The city primarily lies on the right bank of the Guadalquivir in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. Once a Roman colony, it was taken over by the Visigothic Kingdom in the sixth century and then conquered by the Muslims in the eighth century. Córdoba became the capital of the Emirate and then Caliphate of Córdoba, from which the Umayyad dynasty ruled al-Andalus. Under Umayyad rule, Córdoba was transformed into a centre of education and learning, and by the 10th century it had grown to be the second-largest city in Europe. The caliphate experienced a manifold political crisis in the early 11th century that brought about state collapse. Following the Christian conquest in 1236, Córdoba became part of the Crown of Castile as the head of the Kingdom of Córdoba.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →

Getting there

Nearest airport

Seville Airport (SVQ), 111 km, 9,686,487 passengers in 2025, 95 destinations

Direct to Amsterdam

Seville airport, 111 km (year-round)

Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)

Seville airport, 111 km (year-round)

Direct to London

Seville airport, 111 km (year-round)

Direct to Paris

Seville airport, 111 km (year-round)

Direct to Frankfurt

Seville airport, 111 km (year-round)

Direct to the US

Madrid airport, 308 km (year-round); summer only from Málaga, 137 km

Train station

Córdoba-Julio Anguita (0.9 km)

Fastest train to Madrid

1 h 44

Fastest train to Barcelona

5 h 05

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 Reina Sofia (in town, 1,229 beds)

Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)

Hospital Universitario Reina Sofia (in town, 1,229 beds)

Nearest private general hospital

Hospital San Juan de Dios de Córdoba (in town, 205 beds)

General hospitals within 25 km

8

Waiting time for planned surgery (Andalusia)

173 days on average; 32.2% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)

Waiting time for a first specialist visit

136 days on average; 57.1% 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

The British School of Córdoba (British), Córdoba, 3.1 km

International schools within 25 km

5

Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)

British 3.1 km

Within 30 km (up to five):

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

-1.3% in ten years (327,362 in 2015, 323,262 in 2025)

Age

20.1% aged 65 or over, 15.2% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)

Local income

13,963 € net per person per year (2023), 93% of the Spanish average; median 17,850 € per adult-equivalent

Foreign residents

2.6% of all residents; 0.6% of residents aged 65+ (2022)

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

89 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)

• 60 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
• 27 pharmacies
• 7 doctors, clinics or hospitals
• 251 cafés, bars and restaurants
• 100 parks and gardens
• 46 bus stops
• 21 libraries, theatres, cinemas, cultural centres
• 3 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

2,379 (1.53% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 3.5 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)

Blue Flag beaches

nearest in Almodóvar del Río, 23 km; 1 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

Guadalquivir

Reservoirs now

69.6% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 33.9%

Worst week 2016-2025

17.9% full (2023-10-17)

Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025

49% 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

• OCU residents' survey 2026 (15 largest cities): 5 (source)

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.

The year in numbers

Köppen climate class

Csa: Hot-summer Mediterranean

Summer mugginess (August average dew point)

13.1°C – noticeable

Typical hottest day of the year

43.1°C

Typical coldest night of the year

-2.9°C

Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F

175 a year (estimate)

Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F

125 a year

Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F

66 a year (estimate)

Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)

30 a year (estimate)

Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)

13 a year

Overcast days

62 a year

Average humidity

59%

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 CÓRDOBA AEROPUERTO (5402), 7.0 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.

Around 2055 (projection)

August average high

38.0°C: +1.2 °C compared with today (models range from 0.4 °C to 2.1 °C)

Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)

47 a year, +17 (models: +6 to +26)

Frost nights

10 a year (-2)

Rainy days (1 mm or more)

48 a year, -7 (models: -14 to -4)

Rain amount

-7% over the year: summer -35%, winter -1%

Sunlight reaching the ground

+0.8% (models: -1.0% to +2.4%); 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

Nearby and similar towns

Nearest towns in this comparison

Écija (Seville, 47 km), Puente Genil (Córdoba, 56 km), Lucena (Córdoba, 59 km), Andújar (Jaén, 66 km), Jaén (Jaén, 88 km)

Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)

Badajoz (Badajoz), Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), Murcia (Murcia), Dos Hermanas (Seville), Granada (Granada)

Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.

Articles that discuss Córdoba

• Best places in Spain for digital nomads: 2026 ranking
• Walkable towns in Spain: living without a car
• Hot but not sticky: where in Spain summers are dry
• Where the foreigners are, and where they aren't
• Where in Spain is it not too hot in summer?
• Where the British, Germans and other expats live in Spain