Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña: population and climate
A Coruña, Galicia · 100,965 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)
Living in Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is a mid-sized city of 100,965 inhabitants 27 km from the sea in A Coruña (Galicia), with cool winters and mild, wet summers (January nights 5.2°C, August afternoons 24.8°C). Summers stay moderate: August afternoons average 24.8°C, cooler than 93% of the towns. The nearest international school (Montessori Compostela, international curriculum) is 1.0 km away. Public waiting lists in Galicia are among the shortest in Spain (73 days for planned surgery). Against that, sunshine is scarce by Spanish standards (5.3 hours a day, 128 rainy days a year). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 26.0°C and the number of warm nights at 0 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 Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, alternatively abbreviated to Santiago or Compostela, is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. It is located in the province of A Coruña, in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route since the 9th century. In 1985, the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ), 10 km, 3,120,759 passengers in 2025, 30 destinations
- Direct to Amsterdam
- Porto airport, 182 km (year-round); summer only from Santiago, 10 km
- Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)
- Porto airport, 182 km (year-round); summer only from Santiago, 10 km
- Direct to London
- Santiago airport, 10 km (year-round)
- Direct to Paris
- Santiago airport, 10 km (year-round)
- Direct to Frankfurt
- Porto airport, 182 km (year-round); summer only from Santiago, 10 km
- Direct to the US
- Porto airport, 182 km (year-round); summer only from Santiago, 10 km
- Train station
- Santiago de Compostela-Daniel Castelao (1.7 km)
- Fastest train to Madrid
- 2 h 57
- Fastest train to Barcelona
- 12 h 43
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
- Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago (in town, 1,511 beds)
- Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)
- Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago (in town, 1,511 beds)
- Nearest private general hospital
- Hospital HM Rosaleda-HM La Esperanza (in town, 119 beds)
- General hospitals within 25 km
- 2
- Waiting time for planned surgery (Galicia)
- 73 days on average; 5.7% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
- Waiting time for a first specialist visit
- 63 days on average; 41.3% 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
- Montessori Compostela (curriculum not stated), Santiago de Compostela, 1.0 km
- International schools within 25 km
- 3
- Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)
- British 47 km
Within 30 km (up to five):
| School | Curriculum | Levels in the register | Where | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montessori Compostela | curriculum not stated | not listed | Santiago de Compostela | 1.0 km |
| Semente Compostela | curriculum not stated | not listed | Santiago de Compostela | 1.6 km |
| Chester College Internat. School | curriculum not stated | infant, primary, secondary | Cacheiras | 7.0 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
- +5.6% in ten years (95,612 in 2015, 100,965 in 2025)
- Age
- 23.3% aged 65 or over, 13.3% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
- Local income
- 17,514 € net per person per year (2023), 116% of the Spanish average; median 22,750 € per adult-equivalent
- Foreign residents
- 5.6% of all residents; 1.1% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
- Largest nationalities
- Venezuelan 0.7%; all EU citizens 1.4% (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
- 89 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)
- 124 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
- 20 pharmacies
- 8 doctors, clinics or hospitals
- 297 cafés, bars and restaurants
- 209 parks and gardens
- 45 bus stops
- 23 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
- 420 (0.74% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 2.0 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
- Blue Flag beaches
- nearest in Vilagarcía de Arousa, 36 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
- Galicia-Costa
- Reservoirs now
- 51.8% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 56.4%
- Worst week 2016-2025
- 38.0% full (2017-12-05)
- Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025
- 0% 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 | 12.1 | 13.2 | 15.8 | 17.1 | 19.6 | 22.6 | 24.6 | 24.8 | 23.0 | 19.4 | 14.6 | 12.7 |
| Average nightly low, °C | 5.2 | 5.4 | 6.3 | 7.5 | 9.9 | 12.4 | 14.2 | 14.4 | 12.9 | 10.7 | 7.3 | 5.7 |
| Rain, mm | 196 | 151 | 140 | 130 | 109 | 44 | 31 | 45 | 89 | 214 | 194 | 184 |
| Rainy days (1 mm or more) | 14.0 | 12.6 | 12.5 | 12.6 | 10.9 | 5.7 | 4.6 | 5.1 | 7.9 | 13.5 | 14.6 | 14.2 |
| Sunshine, hours per day | 2.9 | 4.1 | 5.0 | 5.8 | 6.4 | 7.4 | 7.9 | 7.7 | 6.3 | 4.4 | 3.2 | 2.9 |
| Humidity, % | 79 | 74 | 68 | 68 | 67 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 69 | 75 | 79 | 80 |
| Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 3.2 | 1.9 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The year in numbers
- Köppen climate class
- Csb: Warm-summer Mediterranean
- Summer mugginess (August average dew point)
- 13.4°C – noticeable
- Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F
- 47 a year (estimate)
- Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F
- 13 a year
- Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F
- 1 a year (estimate)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 0 a year (estimate)
- Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)
- 4 a year
- Average humidity
- 71%
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 SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA (1475X), 1.1 km away; sunshine from SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA AEROPUERTO (1428), 11 km; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.
Around 2055 (projection)
- August average high
- 26.0°C: +1.1 °C compared with today (models range from -0.1 °C to 2.9 °C)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 0 a year, +0 (models: +0 to +0)
- Frost nights
- 3 a year (-1)
- Rainy days (1 mm or more)
- 116 a year, -12 (models: -25 to -5)
- Rain amount
- -7% over the year: summer -30%, winter +2%
- Sunlight reaching the ground
- +2.0% (models: -0.5% to +4.1%); 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 Santiago de Compostela?
Santiago de Compostela is in the province of A Coruña (Galicia), Spain, 27 km from the sea. The nearest airport is Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ), 10 km away.
How many people live in Santiago de Compostela?
100,965 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +5.6% in ten years.
What is the climate of Santiago de Compostela?
January afternoons average 12.1°C and nights 5.2°C; August afternoons 24.8°C. 5.3 hours of sunshine a day and 128 rainy days a year (AEMET 1991-2020).
Is Santiago de Compostela safe?
Recorded conventional crime in Santiago de Compostela was 41.1 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, about average for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 1.10 per 1,000.
How hot is Santiago de Compostela in summer?
August afternoons average 24.8°C (1991-2020), with 0 nights a year above 20 °C and 1 days of 35 °C or more.
How cold is Santiago de Compostela in winter?
January afternoons average 12.1°C and January nights 5.2°C, with 4 frost nights a year.
Is there a hospital in Santiago de Compostela?
Yes: Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago, a public general hospital with 1,511 beds. Planned surgery in Galicia waits 73 days on average.
Can you fly direct from Santiago de Compostela to Amsterdam or London all year?
Yes. Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ) (10 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.
What does it cost to rent or buy in Santiago de Compostela?
A typical apartment (79 m²) rented for 500 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 2,278 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 35.6% in five years.
Nearby and similar towns
- Nearest towns in this comparison
- Ames (A Coruña, 10 km), Vilagarcía de Arousa (Pontevedra, 36 km), Carballo (A Coruña, 39 km), Culleredo (A Coruña, 45 km), Arteixo (A Coruña, 46 km)
- Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)
- Barakaldo (Bizkaia), Pontevedra (Pontevedra), Irun (Gipuzkoa), Oviedo (Asturias), Santurtzi (Bizkaia)
Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.