Ponferrada, León: population, climate, prices

León, Castilla y León · 63,186 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)

Living in Ponferrada

Ponferrada is a town of 63,186 inhabitants inland in León (Castilla y León), with cold winters and hot summers (January nights 1.4°C, August afternoons 29.6°C). Homes are cheap for Spain: appraised at 890 €/m², lower than 96% of the towns; a typical apartment rents for 400 € a month. Summer air is dry (August dew point 12.4°C), so the heat is easier to bear than on the coast. Recorded crime is low: 28.0 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025 (Spain about 41). Against that, winter nights are cold (1.4°C in January, 42 frost nights a year). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 30.9°C and the number of warm nights at 2 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 Ponferrada

Ponferrada is a city of Spain, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Ponferrada, the second most populated municipality of the Province of León, is also the capital city of El Bierzo, the only comarca recognized as an administrative entity by law in the region.

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

Buying: appraised price

890 €/m²

Last 4 quarters to 2026 Q2, 745 valuations. 1 year 4.6%, 5 years 13.6%.

Renting: typical apartment

400 €/month

5.01 €/m² per month for a typical 89 m² (2024 contracts). 5 years 15.0%. Houses: 395 €/month.

Safety: recorded crime

28.0 per 1,000

Conventional crime 2025 (Spain ≈ 41). Home burglaries 1.44, violent robbery 0.28, theft 7.5 per 1,000. 1 year -8.1%.

Sea

109.9 km

Straight-line distance from the town centre to the coast.

Getting there

Nearest airport: Asturias Airport (OVD), 122 km, 2,051,342 passengers in 2025, 29 destinations
Direct to Amsterdam: Porto airport, 225 km (year-round); summer only from Asturias, 122 km
Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi): Asturias airport, 122 km (year-round)
Direct to London: Asturias airport, 122 km (year-round)
Direct to Paris: Asturias airport, 122 km (year-round)
Direct to Frankfurt: Porto airport, 225 km (year-round); summer only from Asturias, 122 km
Direct to the US: Porto airport, 225 km (year-round); summer only from Santiago, 154 km
Train station: Ponferrada (0.9 km)
Fastest train to Madrid: 4 h 09
Fastest train to Barcelona: 9 h 32

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 El Bierzo (in town, 413 beds)
Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties): Hospital de León. Complejo Asistencial Universitario de León. (84 km away, in León, 789 beds)
Nearest private general hospital: Hospital de La Reina (in town, 72 beds)
General hospitals within 25 km: 3
Waiting time for planned surgery (Castile and León): 87 days on average; 13.8% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
Waiting time for a first specialist visit: 102 days on average; 55.2% 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 English School Of Asturias (British), Pruvia de Abajo, 117.1 km
International schools within 25 km: 0
Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km): none of these within 100 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: -5.5% in ten years (66,884 in 2015, 63,186 in 2025)
Age: 25.3% aged 65 or over, 12.1% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
Local income: 14,473 € net per person per year (2023), 96% of the Spanish average; median 18,550 € per adult-equivalent
Foreign residents: 4.2% of all residents; 1.1% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
Largest nationalities: Colombian 0.7%, Portuguese 0.6%; all EU citizens 1.2% (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: 62 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)

41 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
18 pharmacies
3 doctors, clinics or hospitals
101 cafés, bars and restaurants
25 parks and gardens
36 bus stops
5 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: 109 (0.26% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 0.8 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
Blue Flag beaches: nearest in A Veiga, 49 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: Miño-Sil
Reservoirs now: 58.3% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 56.0%
Worst week 2016-2025: 37.4% full (2017-12-05)
Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025: 1% 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	9.6	12.6	16.6	18.6	22.4	26.8	29.8	29.6	25.6	19.5	13.1	9.4
Average nightly low, °C	1.4	1.7	4.1	6.2	9.1	12.5	14.4	14.1	11.5	8.4	4.5	2.0
Rain, mm	74	51	52	49	50	33	22	21	42	78	82	84
Rainy days (1 mm or more)	9.5	7.4	8.6	8.9	8.6	4.8	3.2	3.3	5.4	9.9	10.3	9.9
Sunshine, hours per day	3.4	5.2	6.4	7.1	8.5	9.4	11.1	10.4			3.3	2.6
Humidity, %	82	73	65	63	61	58	55	55	62	73	81	85
Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	2.2	9.4	16.2	15.2	5.8	0.5	0.0	0.0

The year in numbers

Köppen climate class: Csa: Hot-summer Mediterranean
Summer mugginess (August average dew point): 12.4°C – dry, comfortable
Typical hottest day of the year: 37.4°C
Typical coldest night of the year: -5.8°C
Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F: 105 a year (estimate)
Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F: 49 a year
Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F: 9 a year (estimate)
Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more): 2 a year (estimate)
Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less): 42 a year
Average humidity: 68%

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 PONFERRADA (1549), 1.7 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.

Around 2055 (projection)

August average high: 30.9°C: +1.3 °C compared with today (models range from 0.2 °C to 3.0 °C)
Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more): 2 a year, +0 (models: +0 to +1)
Frost nights: 36 a year (-5)
Rainy days (1 mm or more): 81 a year, -8 (models: -18 to -4)
Rain amount: -7% over the year: summer -26%, winter +4%
Sunlight reaching the ground: +1.0% (models: -0.4% to +2.6%); 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 Ponferrada?

Ponferrada is in the province of León (Castilla y León), Spain, inland. The nearest airport is Asturias Airport (OVD), 122 km away.

How many people live in Ponferrada?

63,186 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), -5.5% in ten years.

What is the climate of Ponferrada?

January afternoons average 9.6°C and nights 1.4°C; August afternoons 29.6°C.

Is Ponferrada safe?

Recorded conventional crime in Ponferrada was 28.0 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, low for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 1.44 per 1,000.

How hot is Ponferrada in summer?

August afternoons average 29.6°C (1991-2020), with 2 nights a year above 20 °C and 9 days of 35 °C or more.

How cold is Ponferrada in winter?

January afternoons average 9.6°C and January nights 1.4°C, with 42 frost nights a year.

Is there a hospital in Ponferrada?

Yes: Hospital El Bierzo, a public general hospital with 413 beds. Planned surgery in Castile and León waits 87 days on average.

Can you fly direct from Ponferrada to Amsterdam or London all year?

Yes. Asturias Airport (OVD) (122 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.

What does it cost to rent or buy in Ponferrada?

A typical apartment (89 m²) rented for 400 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 890 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 13.6% in five years.

Nearby and similar towns

Nearest towns in this comparison: San Andrés del Rabanedo (León, 80 km), León (León, 84 km), Lugo (Lugo, 94 km), Mieres (Asturias, 103 km), Ourense (Ourense, 107 km)
Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size): Figueres (Girona), Zamora (Zamora), Miranda de Ebro (Burgos), Tudela (Navarre), Salt (Girona)

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