The Most Beautiful Beaches in Spain
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful beaches in Spain are Praia das Catedrais, Caló d'es Moro and Playa de Cofete. The list covers 5 beaches. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Spain's beaches change character from one coast to the next. On the Atlantic in Galicia, tides and storms carve the cliffs into arches; in the Balearics, small limestone coves called calas cut into a coast of pines, filled with water made clear by meadows of Posidonia seagrass; and in the Canaries, volcanic islands give wide, wild strands beneath mountain walls.
Praia das Catedrais near Ribadeo in Galicia, the Beach of the Cathedrals, reveals at low tide a row of slate arches like flying buttresses that the sea has cut into the cliff. On Mallorca, Caló des Moro is a tiny inlet between pine-covered rocks with turquoise water. On Fuerteventura, Playa de Cofete stretches for kilometres beneath the steep ridges of the Jandía massif, with the Atlantic rolling in. Ses Illetes on Formentera is a narrow spit of white sand with shallow, transparent water on both sides. Cala Macarella on Menorca lies at the end of a wooded ravine, enclosed by limestone cliffs.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Praia das Catedrais | Beach | |
| 2 | Caló d'es Moro | Beach | |
| 3 | Playa de Cofete | Beach | |
| 4 | Ses Illetes | Beach | |
| 5 | Cala Macarella | Beach |
01 Praia das Catedrais
Playa de Las Catedrales
Spain43.554° N 7.157° W
Mikipons · CC BY-SA 4.0 The regional government of Galicia declared the beach a natural monument in 2005. Its popularity grew so fast that in 2015 the Xunta introduced an advance pass for the busiest periods, limiting how many people descend to the sand at once.
Did you know? The official name, Augas Santas or Holy Waters, is thought to recall an old spring that local people believed had healing powers.
02 Caló d'es Moro
Spain39.314° N 3.121° E
Tommie Hansen from Stockholm, Sweden · CC BY 2.0 Its beauty has a cost. The cove is so small and so photographed that in summer it fills to the edge, and the best time to see it as it should be seen is early in the morning or outside the high season, when the light is low and the colours are at their strongest.
Did you know? Smugglers once used this stretch of coast, carrying heavy sacks between the cove and neighbouring s'Almunia, with small stone cairns serving as signals from the sea.
03 Playa de Cofete
Spain28.112° N 14.390° W
dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 Above the beach, on the slope of the mountain, stands Villa Winter, a solitary house built in the 1940s by the German engineer Gustav Winter. Its isolation and the lack of a clear explanation for why it was built in such a remote spot have fed persistent local rumours, none of them proven, about secret wartime uses. Whatever its history, the house adds a strange, slightly theatrical note to an otherwise elemental place. The sea here is open Atlantic: currents are strong, the beach has no lifeguards, and swimming calls for real caution.
Did you know? Ridley Scott used Cofete and the Jandía coast as a stand-in for ancient Egypt in his 2014 epic Exodus: Gods and Kings.
04 Ses Illetes
Spain38.750° N 1.433° E
Freedom IS Paradise - Ibiza · CC BY-SA 4.0 Formentera is the smaller of the two inhabited Pitiusas, the southern group of the Balearic Islands, and it is reached only by sea, which has helped it keep a quiet, low-built character. The beach belongs to the island's single municipality, and the nearest settlement is La Savina, the island's port, about 4 km to the south along the salt flats of the park.
Did you know? Such Posidonia clones grow by endlessly dividing their creeping rhizomes, and a single one can spread across as much as 15 kilometres of seabed.
05 Cala Macarella
Spain39.938° N 3.937° E
Image by matressa_ from Pixabay There is no village here and almost no building: the cove lies on an undeveloped stretch of coast west of Cala Galdana, in the municipality of Ciutadella. The beach is tied into the Camí de Cavalls, the old coastal track, once ridden by mounted soldiers between the watchtowers and forts of the island, which now circles all of Menorca as a long-distance footpath of some 186 km. Following it east or west along the clifftops is the best way to understand the setting, as the coast unfolds as a sequence of hidden coves, pine woods and ravines, each with its own small beach.
Did you know? The long struggle ended in 1991, when a new Balearic law declared the area a Natural Area of Special Interest, safe from building.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful beaches in Spain?
- On our list, Praia das Catedrais ranks first, followed by Caló d'es Moro and Playa de Cofete.
- Why is it called the Beach of the Cathedrals?
- At low tide, the sea-carved arches in the cliffs of Praia das Catedrais rise like the flying buttresses and naves of a Gothic cathedral.
- Why is the water in the Balearic Islands so clear?
- Meadows of Posidonia oceanica seagrass on the seabed trap sediment and oxygenate the water. The meadows between Ibiza and Formentera are protected as part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- How many beaches are on this list in Spain?
- The list covers 5 beaches.