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Sestao, Bizkaia: population, climate, prices

Bizkaia, Basque Country · 28,512 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)

Living in Sestao

Sestao is a small town of 28,512 inhabitants on the coast in Bizkaia (Basque Country), with cool winters and warm, wet summers (January nights 5.1°C, August afternoons 26.1°C). Summers stay moderate: August afternoons average 26.1°C, cooler than 90% of the towns. The nearest international school (St. George'S British International School, British curriculum) is 2.5 km away. Public waiting lists in Basque Country are among the shortest in Spain (64 days for planned surgery). Against that, sunshine is scarce by Spanish standards (4.5 hours a day, 124 rainy days a year). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 27.0°C and the number of warm nights at 6 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 Sestao

Sestao is a town and municipality in the province of Biscay in the autonomous community of the Basque Country in northern Spain. It is in the left bank of the Estuary of Bilbao and part of Bilbao's metropolitan area. It has 28,473 inhabitants.

Sestao was the place of the most important steel industry of Biscay, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya.

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

Getting there

Nearest airport

Bilbao Airport (BIO), 8 km, 7,062,681 passengers in 2025, 73 destinations

Direct to Amsterdam

Bilbao airport, 8 km (year-round)

Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)

Bilbao airport, 8 km (year-round)

Direct to London

Bilbao airport, 8 km (year-round)

Direct to Paris

Bilbao airport, 8 km (year-round)

Direct to Frankfurt

Bilbao airport, 8 km (year-round)

Direct to the US

Madrid airport, 317 km (year-round); summer only from Bilbao, 8 km

Train station

Bilbao-Intermod. Abando Indalecio Prieto (8.4 km)

Fastest train to Madrid

4 h 35

Fastest train to Barcelona

7 h 03

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 Cruces (2 km away, in Barakaldo, 981 beds)

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

Hospital Universitario Cruces (2 km away, in Barakaldo, 981 beds)

Nearest private general hospital

Hospital Quironsalud Bizkaia (3 km away, in Erandio, 110 beds)

General hospitals within 25 km

13

Waiting time for planned surgery (Basque Country)

64 days on average; 2.3% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)

Waiting time for a first specialist visit

49 days on average; 69.2% 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

ST. GEORGE'S BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (British), Artatza, 2.5 km

International schools within 25 km

4

Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)

British 2.5 km · American 5.2 km · French 9.2 km · German 9.5 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

+1.6% in ten years (28,052 in 2015, 28,512 in 2025)

Age

25.1% aged 65 or over, 12.5% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)

Local income

14,731 € net per person per year (2023), 98% of the Spanish average; median 19,950 € per adult-equivalent

Foreign residents

10.8% of all residents; 1.0% of residents aged 65+ (2022)

Largest nationalities

Moroccan 2.0%, Colombian 1.0%, Romanian 0.8%, Venezuelan 0.6%; all EU citizens 1.1% (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

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

• 64 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
• 13 pharmacies
• 6 doctors, clinics or hospitals
• 50 cafés, bars and restaurants
• 85 parks and gardens
• 24 bus stops
• 8 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

17 (0.13% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 0.2 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)

Blue Flag beaches

nearest in Castro-Urdiales, 19 km; 4 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

Cantabrico Oriental

Reservoirs now

60.3% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 72.2%

Worst week 2016-2025

58.9% full (2016-11-08)

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.

The year in numbers

Köppen climate class

Cfb: Oceanic

Summer mugginess (August average dew point)

16.0°C – muggy

Typical hottest day of the year

37.3°C

Typical coldest night of the year

-2.6°C

Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F

60 a year (estimate)

Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F

17 a year

Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F

0 a year (estimate)

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

1 a year (estimate)

Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)

8 a year

Overcast days

155 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 BILBAO AEROPUERTO (1082), 8.1 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.

Around 2055 (projection)

August average high

27.0°C: +0.7 °C compared with today (models range from -0.1 °C to 1.9 °C)

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

6 a year, +5 (models: +1 to +13)

Frost nights

7 a year (-1)

Rainy days (1 mm or more)

113 a year, -11 (models: -25 to +2)

Rain amount

-7% over the year: summer -22%, winter +0%

Sunlight reaching the ground

+0.4% (models: -1.5% to +3.0%); 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

Portugalete (Bizkaia, 1 km), Barakaldo (Bizkaia, 2 km), Leioa (Bizkaia, 3 km), Santurtzi (Bizkaia, 3 km), Getxo (Bizkaia, 4 km)

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

Castro-Urdiales (Cantabria), Basauri (Bizkaia), Durango (Bizkaia), Eibar (Gipuzkoa), Ames (A Coruña)

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