Castile and León

Castile and León is an autonomous community in the northwest of Spain's Iberian Peninsula and, by area, the largest in the country, covering 94,216.91 square kilometres. It is landlocked, ringed by the Cantabrian Mountains, the Sistema Central and the Sistema Ibérico, and most of its land is drained by the Douro River toward the Atlantic. It is very thinly settled, with 2,401,221 residents in 2025 and the second-lowest population density among Spanish autonomous communities. The community was created in 1983 by joining nine provinces: León, Zamora and Salamanca, which were traditionally part of the region of León, and Ávila, Burgos, Palencia, Segovia, Soria and Valladolid, which belonged to Old Castile. No capital is named in its statute of autonomy, but its executive and legislative institutions sit in Valladolid, which serves as the de facto regional capital. The region holds eleven World Heritage Sites, among them the Atapuerca sites, and the Cortes of León of 1188 are recognised by UNESCO as a cradle of parliamentarism.