Lorca, Murcia: population, climate, prices
Murcia, Murcia · 98,969 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)
Living in Lorca
Lorca is a town of 98,969 inhabitants 30 km from the sea in Murcia, with cold winters and very hot, dry summers (January nights 3.7°C, August afternoons 33.8°C). 22.1% of residents are foreign nationals (3.8% among the over-65s), so English-speaking services are common. Homes are cheap for Spain: appraised at 1,138 €/m², lower than 85% of the towns; a typical apartment rents for 450 € a month. Year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US leave from Region of Murcia International Airport (RMU), 52 km away. Against that, summers are hot (33.8°C on an average August afternoon, 24 days of 35 °C or more a year). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 34.8°C and the number of warm nights at 43 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 Lorca
Lorca is a municipality and city in the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia in south-eastern Spain, 58 kilometres (36 mi) southwest of the city of Murcia. The municipality had a population of 95,515 in 2020, up from the 2001 census total of 77,477. Lorca has the second largest surface area of municipalities in Spain, 1,675.21 km2 (646.80 sq mi), after Cáceres. The city is home to Lorca Castle and to a Collegiate church dedicated to St. Patrick.
From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →
Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Region of Murcia International Airport (RMU), 52 km, 949,007 passengers in 2025, 21 destinations
- Direct to Amsterdam
- Alicante airport, 120 km (year-round)
- Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)
- Alicante airport, 120 km (year-round); summer only from Almería, 111 km
- Direct to London
- Murcia airport, 52 km (year-round)
- Direct to Paris
- Alicante airport, 120 km (year-round); summer only from Almería, 111 km
- Direct to Frankfurt
- Alicante airport, 120 km (year-round)
- Direct to the US
- Madrid airport, 352 km (year-round); summer only from Málaga, 272 km
- Train station
- no long-distance station within 15 km
- Fastest train to Madrid
- no direct train
- 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 Rafael Méndez (in town, 287 beds)
- Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)
- Hospital Clínico Universitario Virgen de La Arrixaca (60 km away, in Murcia, 937 beds)
- Nearest private general hospital
- Hospital La Vega Grupo Ha (60 km away, in Murcia, 142 beds)
- General hospitals within 25 km
- 1
- Waiting time for planned surgery (Murcia)
- 103 days on average; 19.3% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
- Waiting time for a first specialist visit
- 89 days on average; 81.9% 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
- SHORELESS LAKE SCHOOL (curriculum not stated), Totana, 20.6 km
- International schools within 25 km
- 1
- Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)
- British 63 km · American 60 km · French 63 km · Nordic 97 km
Within 30 km (up to five):
| School | Curriculum | Levels in the register | Where | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SHORELESS LAKE SCHOOL | curriculum not stated | primary, secondary | Totana | 21 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
- +7.9% in ten years (91,714 in 2015, 98,969 in 2025)
- Age
- 15.2% aged 65 or over, 18.1% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
- Local income
- 11,470 € net per person per year (2023), 76% of the Spanish average; median 15,750 € per adult-equivalent
- Foreign residents
- 22.1% of all residents; 3.8% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
- Largest nationalities
- Moroccan 11.4%, Romanian 1.0%; all EU citizens 1.8% (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
- 5 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
- 46 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)
- 3 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
- 16 pharmacies
- 2 doctors, clinics or hospitals
- 25 cafés, bars and restaurants
- 74 parks and gardens
- 18 bus stops
- 4 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
- 67 (0.16% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 0.4 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
- Blue Flag beaches
- 1 in town; 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
- Segura
- Reservoirs now
- 50.1% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 25.7%
- Worst week 2016-2025
- 13.1% full (2017-11-21)
- Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025
- 83% 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 | 15.9 | 17.1 | 19.6 | 22.1 | 26.0 | 30.6 | 33.8 | 33.8 | 29.1 | 24.6 | 19.2 | 16.6 |
| Average nightly low, °C | 3.7 | 4.7 | 6.8 | 9.2 | 12.7 | 16.5 | 19.2 | 19.8 | 16.6 | 12.5 | 7.7 | 4.6 |
| Rain, mm | 16 | 16 | 22 | 22 | 20 | 12 | 1 | 9 | 30 | 24 | 25 | 20 |
| Rainy days (1 mm or more) | 2.5 | 2.6 | 3.2 | 3.5 | 2.8 | 1.5 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.5 | 2.4 |
| Humidity, % | 65 | 62 | 60 | 56 | 53 | 48 | 49 | 53 | 61 | 65 | 67 | 67 |
| Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 4.8 | 18.2 | 28.1 | 28.6 | 12.8 | 1.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The year in numbers
- Köppen climate class
- BWk: Cold desert
- Summer mugginess (August average dew point)
- 16.9°C – muggy
- Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F
- 163 a year (estimate)
- Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F
- 95 a year
- Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F
- 24 a year (estimate)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 28 a year (estimate)
- Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)
- 7 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 LORCA (7209), 2.2 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.
Around 2055 (projection)
- August average high
- 34.8°C: +1.1 °C compared with today (models range from 0.3 °C to 2.0 °C)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 43 a year, +17 (models: +6 to +28)
- Frost nights
- 7 a year (-1)
- Rainy days (1 mm or more)
- 25 a year, -4 (models: -13 to +4)
- Rain amount
- -8% over the year: summer -20%, winter -6%
- Sunlight reaching the ground
- +0.1% (models: -0.3% to +0.6%); 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 Lorca?
Lorca is in the province of Murcia, Spain, 30 km from the sea. The nearest airport is Region of Murcia International Airport (RMU), 52 km away.
How many people live in Lorca?
98,969 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +7.9% in ten years.
What is the climate of Lorca?
January afternoons average 15.9°C and nights 3.7°C; August afternoons 33.8°C.
Is Lorca safe?
Recorded conventional crime in Lorca was 29.9 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, low for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 1.34 per 1,000.
How hot is Lorca in summer?
August afternoons average 33.8°C (1991-2020), with 28 nights a year above 20 °C and 24 days of 35 °C or more.
How cold is Lorca in winter?
January afternoons average 15.9°C and January nights 3.7°C, with 7 frost nights a year.
Is there a hospital in Lorca?
Yes: Hospital Rafael Méndez, a public general hospital with 287 beds. Planned surgery in Murcia waits 103 days on average.
Can you fly direct from Lorca to Amsterdam or London all year?
Yes. Region of Murcia International Airport (RMU) (52 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.
What does it cost to rent or buy in Lorca?
A typical apartment (102 m²) rented for 450 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 1,138 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 32.9% in five years.
Nearby and similar towns
- Nearest towns in this comparison
- Totana (Murcia, 20 km), Águilas (Murcia, 33 km), Mazarrón (Murcia, 35 km), Caravaca de la Cruz (Murcia, 49 km), Alcantarilla (Murcia, 54 km)
- Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)
- Molina de Segura (Murcia), Mérida (Badajoz), Lleida (Lleida), Jaén (Jaén), Talavera de la Reina (Toledo)
Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.