Essential Spain
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Madrid Community
Make the most of your time in Madrid Community, use the information provided on this web site by clicking on the links to plan your visit.
Almost everything that happens in the autonomous community of Madrid centres around the capital city of the region and the capital city of the country which goes by the same name - Madrid. The community is situated right at the heart of Spain and is dwarfed by its sizeable neighbours Castile and Leon and Castile La Mancha. Madrid contains just one province which, somewhat confusingly, goes by the same name as its capital city and the autonomous community it is part of.
The vast majority of Madrid’s six million inhabitants reside in the forward thinking and exciting capital city. This means that despite the region being only the 12th largest in Spain it is the third largest in terms of population and so its density is particularly compact. Madrid was the last community to gain recognition as an autonomous region, making its presence felt as late as March 1983. It had been part of Castile but managed to break away under a certain 
clause of the constitution on the grounds that it has a different culture to its now neighbour.
The central part of Spain is not all about the major city however; it also has unspoilt areas, mountains, plains and forests. Some of its mountains are higher than 2,000 metres, its tallest peak being Peñalara at 2,430 metres. The Lozoya Valley is home to a black vulture colony, the Spanish Imperial eagle and possibly even some Iberian Lynx. Meanwhile, the region’s climate tends to be Mediterranean with cold winters and hot summers.
Madrid has the highest income per capita of any of the country’s autonomous communities, and is in fact 30 per cent above the national average. It also has low unemployment figures signalling further the strength of its economy which focuses around services, construction and industry.