Cantabria · Cantabria
Santillana del Mar
Despite its name, not by the sea but a few miles inland — a museum-village that has kept its medieval heritage intact.
What Santillana del Mar is like
Portrait drawn from the Michelin Green Guide.
22 miles east of Santander.
Worth the trip
- Cobbled streets lined with stately homes with blazoned facades and flower-filled balconies
- The Colegiata, a 12th/13th-century collegiate church with a cloister of vegetal-themed capitals and a 16th-century Hispano-Flemish altarpiece
Who it suits: Medieval-architecture travellers
The numbers
The decision data — each figure against the Spanish average. Regional overlays and estimates are labelled, and where there's no local reading we say so plainly.
Climate
- Winter average temp
- 10.4°C 2.7°C above the Spanish average (7.8°C)
- Summer high (Jul–Aug)
- 23.3°C 6.9°C below the Spanish average (30.2°C)
- Rainy days a year
- 124 days 81% more than the Spanish average (69 days)
- Sunshine
- no local data
- Summer water stress (WEI+) regional estimate
- 6 50 below the Spanish average (56)
Cost & economy
- Home price
- no local data
- Net income per person
- €15,247 5% more than the Spanish average (€14,495)
- Income growth ’18–’23
- 25.7%
Schools
- Schools in town
- no local data
- Nearest international school
- 7 km
- PISA maths (region) regional estimate
- 495 14 above the Spanish average (481)
Healthcare
- Drive to a hospital
- 13 min
- Nearest health centre
- 3.8 km
- Surgical wait (region) regional estimate
- 137 days 27% more than the Spanish average (108 days)
Getting around
- Drive to nearest airport
- 26 min
- Fibre-to-home coverage
- 97% 18% above the Spanish average (79%)
- 100 Mbps+ coverage
- 98% 15% above the Spanish average (83%)
Who lives here
- Population
- 4,221
- Born in Spain
- 94.7% 5.9% above the Spanish average (88.8%)
- Born elsewhere in EU/UK
- 1.3% 2.5% below the Spanish average (3.8%)
- U.S.-born residents
- 0.24 per 1,000
Numbers: SettleSpain town dataset, derived from INE, AEMET, Mitma, Ministerio del Interior and the Catastro. National average = the unweighted mean across all 8,132 Spanish municipalities with data. A blank means no municipal-level figure is published — not a zero.
How does Santillana del Mar fit you?
These are the town's numbers. Whether it's your town depends on what you're optimising for — winter sun or mild summers, a city or a village, short medical waits, an easy flight home. The 3-minute quiz scores Santillana del Mar against every one of Spain's 8,132 municipalities on your priorities. It sits about 12 min from Torrelavega, if that's your anchor.
Take the quiz — rank Santillana del Mar for you →Nearby towns
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