Tarragona, Spain: population, climate, prices
Tarragona, Catalonia · 143,649 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)
Living in Tarragona
Tarragona is a mid-sized city of 143,649 inhabitants on the coast in Tarragona (Catalonia), with cold winters and hot summers (January nights 3.9°C, August afternoons 30.3°C). The nearest international school (The British School Of Costa Daurada, British curriculum) is 6.3 km away. Year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US leave from Reus Airport (REU), 8 km away. There is a public general hospital in town (Hospital Universitari Joan Xixi de Tarragona, 372 beds). Against that, recorded crime is high (58.7 per 1,000 residents; Spain about 41); public waiting lists in Catalonia are long (142 days on average for planned surgery). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 31.2°C and the number of warm nights at 50 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 Tarragona
Tarragona is a city and municipality in Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital and largest town of Tarragonès county, the Camp de Tarragona region and the province of Tarragona. Geographically, it is located on the Costa Daurada area on the Mediterranean shore, around the mouth of the Francolí.
Developed in a favorable location on a coastal hill by ancient Romans in the context of the Second Punic War near a previous Iberian settlement, Tarraco eventually became the gateway for Roman control of the Iberian Peninsula. It served as the capital, successively, of the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Hispania Tarraconensis and also became a bishopric seat. Urban continuity is presumed to have been the norm in the 8th century following its integration into Al-Andalus. The Camp de Tarragona later turned into a borderland, and the city was abandoned by Muslims by the mid 10th century. Early Christian repopulation of the city and its hinterland in the 12th century took the form of an autonomous principality, before its 1173 full integration into the Principality of Catalonia and the Crown of Aragon.
The Archaeological Complex of Tàrraco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →
Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Reus Airport (REU), 8 km, 1,336,826 passengers in 2025, 25 destinations
- Direct to Amsterdam
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round)
- Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi)
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round); summer only from Reus, 8 km
- Direct to London
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round); summer only from Reus, 8 km
- Direct to Paris
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round); summer only from Reus, 8 km
- Direct to Frankfurt
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round)
- Direct to the US
- Barcelona airport, 72 km (year-round)
- Train station
- Tarragona (0.7 km)
- Fastest train to Madrid
- no direct train
- Fastest train to Barcelona
- 1 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 Universitari Joan Xixi de Tarragona (in town, 372 beds)
- Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties)
- Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (76 km away, in Hospitalet de Llobregat, L', 1,086 beds)
- Nearest private general hospital
- Hospital de Sant Pau I Santa Tecla (in town, 186 beds)
- General hospitals within 25 km
- 6
- Waiting time for planned surgery (Catalonia)
- 142 days on average; 32.0% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
- Waiting time for a first specialist visit
- 120 days on average; 72.3% 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
- The British School of Costa Daurada (British), El Catllar, 6.3 km
- International schools within 25 km
- 2
- Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km)
- British 6.3 km · American 74 km · French 12 km · German 76 km
Within 30 km (up to five):
| School | Curriculum | Levels in the register | Where | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The British School of Costa Daurada | British | infant, primary, secondary | El Catllar | 6.3 km |
| Col.Français inter. de Reus - Marguerite Yourcenar | French | not listed | Reus | 12 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
- +9.4% in ten years (131,255 in 2015, 143,649 in 2025)
- Age
- 19.2% aged 65 or over, 15.8% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
- Local income
- 15,847 € net per person per year (2023), 105% of the Spanish average; median 19,950 € per adult-equivalent
- Foreign residents
- 18.4% of all residents; 4.1% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
- Largest nationalities
- Moroccan 6.1%, Colombian 1.7%, Romanian 1.4%, Italian 0.8%, Chinese 0.8%; all EU citizens 3.4% (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
- 79 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)
- 86 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
- 23 pharmacies
- 20 doctors, clinics or hospitals
- 178 cafés, bars and restaurants
- 38 parks and gardens
- 32 bus stops
- 16 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
- 746 (1.11% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 2.8 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
- Blue Flag beaches
- 4 in town; 21 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
- Cuencas Internas De Cataluña
- Reservoirs now
- 73.6% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 57.5%
- Worst week 2016-2025
- 14.5% full (2024-03-05)
- Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025
- 26% 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 | 14.6 | 15.5 | 17.8 | 19.8 | 23.2 | 27.2 | 29.9 | 30.3 | 26.8 | 23.0 | 18.1 | 15.1 |
| Average nightly low, °C | 3.9 | 4.4 | 6.7 | 9.0 | 12.5 | 16.6 | 19.7 | 20.2 | 16.8 | 12.9 | 7.7 | 4.7 |
| Rain, mm | 29 | 24 | 34 | 41 | 45 | 22 | 15 | 36 | 73 | 73 | 48 | 34 |
| Rainy days (1 mm or more) | 3.7 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 2.9 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 4.9 | 5.6 | 4.6 | 3.8 |
| Sunshine, hours per day | 5.4 | 6.3 | 6.8 | 7.7 | 8.5 | 9.8 | 10.3 | 8.9 | 7.4 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 5.1 |
| Humidity, % | 68 | 66 | 65 | 65 | 63 | 60 | 60 | 63 | 67 | 72 | 70 | 70 |
| Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 5.4 | 15.9 | 16.7 | 2.6 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The year in numbers
- Köppen climate class
- Csa: Hot-summer Mediterranean
- Summer mugginess (August average dew point)
- 18.5°C – oppressive
- Typical hottest day of the year
- 35.5°C
- Typical coldest night of the year
- -3.2°C
- Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F
- 124 a year (estimate)
- Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F
- 41 a year
- Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F
- 1 a year (estimate)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 37 a year (estimate)
- Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less)
- 14 a year
- Overcast days
- 52 a year
- Average humidity
- 66%
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 REUS AEROPUERTO (0016A), 8.2 km away; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.
Around 2055 (projection)
- August average high
- 31.2°C: +1.0 °C compared with today (models range from 0.5 °C to 2.0 °C)
- Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more)
- 50 a year, +15 (models: +10 to +25)
- Frost nights
- 14 a year (+0)
- Rainy days (1 mm or more)
- 43 a year, -5 (models: -9 to +0)
- Rain amount
- -7% over the year: summer -23%, winter -2%
- Sunlight reaching the ground
- +0.1% (models: -0.7% to +1.0%); 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
Where is Tarragona?
Tarragona is in the province of Tarragona (Catalonia), Spain, on the coast. The nearest airport is Reus Airport (REU), 8 km away.
How many people live in Tarragona?
143,649 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +9.4% in ten years.
What is the climate of Tarragona?
January afternoons average 14.6°C and nights 3.9°C; August afternoons 30.3°C. 7.3 hours of sunshine a day and 48 rainy days a year (AEMET 1991-2020).
Is Tarragona safe?
Recorded conventional crime in Tarragona was 58.7 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, high for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 1.66 per 1,000.
How hot is Tarragona in summer?
August afternoons average 30.3°C (1991-2020), with 37 nights a year above 20 °C and 1 days of 35 °C or more.
How cold is Tarragona in winter?
January afternoons average 14.6°C and January nights 3.9°C, with 14 frost nights a year.
Is there a hospital in Tarragona?
Yes: Hospital Universitari Joan Xixi de Tarragona, a public general hospital with 372 beds. Planned surgery in Catalonia waits 142 days on average.
Can you fly direct from Tarragona to Amsterdam or London all year?
Yes. Reus Airport (REU) (8 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.
What does it cost to rent or buy in Tarragona?
A typical apartment (78 m²) rented for 572 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 1,786 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 46.4% in five years.
Nearby and similar towns
- Nearest towns in this comparison
- Salou (Tarragona, 11 km), Reus (Tarragona, 13 km), Cambrils (Tarragona, 17 km), Valls (Tarragona, 19 km), El Vendrell (Tarragona, 26 km)
- Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size)
- Torrent (Valencia), Logroño (La Rioja), Castelló de la Plana/Castellón de la Plana (Castellón), Paterna (Valencia), Huelva (Huelva)
Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.