Moving to Spain from London?

The climate you'd be trading for

Swap London for a typical Spanish city and, on the national picture, you're looking at about 2°C milder winters, 1.5 more hours of December daylight and about 6°C hotter summers. But "Spain" isn't one climate — it runs from the wet Atlantic northwest to the dry Mediterranean southeast, so the honest answer depends on where:

• Vigo Galicia · Atlantic

  vs London: about 3°C milder winters, 1.5 more hours of December daylight and roughly 3× the rain. mild, green and wet — Spain’s Atlantic northwest.

• Alacant Costa Blanca · Mediterranean

  vs London: about 4°C milder winters, 1.5 more hours of December daylight, about half the rain and about 7°C hotter summers. dry, warm and sunny — the Mediterranean southeast.

• Málaga Costa del Sol · Mediterranean

  vs London: about 5°C milder winters, 2 more hours of December daylight and about 8°C hotter summers. warm winters on the southern coast.

Climate deltas compare 1991–2020 normals for London (Meteostat) against the same 30-year measure for each Spanish anchor. Rounded to whole degrees and bucketed rain ratios on purpose — coarse enough that measurement noise can't flip the direction.

Where Brits actually settle

Not where a magazine says — Spain's own padrón register records the British nationals who lived here on 1 January 2022. Of about 270,689 Brits recorded in the 2,356 municipalities this table covers, these 8 hold the most:

These municipal nationality figures exist only for the 19 coastal, island, Madrid and Galicia provinces where Brits concentrate — 2,356 of Spain's 8,132 municipalities, together more than 90% of all UK residents. A town in any other province is blank here, which means “not in this 2022 table”, not zero.

Source: INE padrón continuo — residents by nationality, 1 January 2022 (the last all-town municipal nationality vintage). This is passport nationality, a different measure and year from the birth-country census figures used for the US, Dutch and Swedish pages. Big places top the list simply because they're big; the "per 1,000" column shows concentration. Linked names have a full town profile.

Getting back to London

Direct flights home run year-round from 23 Spanish airports:

• Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)
• Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)
• Almería Airport (LEI)
• Asturias Airport (OVD)
• Bilbao Airport (BIO)
• Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport (CDT)
• César Manrique-Lanzarote Airport (ACE)
• Fuerteventura Airport (FUE)
• Girona-Costa Brava Airport (GRO)
• Gran Canaria Airport (LPA)
• Ibiza Airport (IBZ)
• Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)
• La Palma Airport (SPC)
• Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)
• Menorca Airport (MAH)
• Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI)
• Region of Murcia International Airport (RMU)
• Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ)
• Seve Ballesteros-Santander Airport (SDR)
• Seville Airport (SVQ)
• Tenerife Sur Airport (TFS)
• Valencia Airport (VLC)
• Zaragoza Airport (ZAZ)

Seasonal (mostly summer): Jerez (XRY), Reus (REU), San Sebastián (EAS).

Direct-route map from SpainScore's airport dataset (Spanish-departure scheduled routes). "Getting home easily" is one of the things the quiz can weight for you.