Alicante/Alacant · Comunidad Valenciana
Benidorm
The beach resort everyone loves to hate — hugely high-rise and 'vaguely Vegas' — yet its sun-drenched sandy beaches keep the crowds coming.
Why people fall for Benidorm
Portrait drawn from The Rough Guide.
Costa Blanca; a quick tram ride from Alicante.
Worth the trip
- An old-town core behind the high-rises, with fresh mojitos and tapas
A little history
British writer Rose Macaulay once described it as a small village 'crowded very beautifully round its domed and tiled church on a rocky peninsula.'
Who it suits: British/German/Scandinavian package sun-and-nightlife holidaymakers
Who Benidorm is for — and who it isn't
Not our opinion: we ran the same scoring engine behind the quiz for six settler profiles across all 8,132 municipalities and read off where Benidorm lands.
Good for
- Retiring couples 94th percentile of 8,132 towns a hospital in town · only 39 rainy days a year
The numbers
The decision data — each figure placed among all Spanish municipalities that report it ("top 10%" always means good, also where lower is better). Regional overlays and estimates are labelled, and where there's no local reading we say so plainly.
Climate
- Winter average temp
- 12.5°C top 8% of 8,131 towns 4.7°C above the Spanish average (7.8°C)
- Summer high (Jul–Aug)
- 31.3°C bottom 34% of 8,131 towns 1.1°C above the Spanish average (30.2°C)
- Rainy days a year
- 39 days top 4% of 8,088 towns 44% less than the Spanish average (69 days)
- Sunshine
- no local data
- Summer water stress (WEI+) regional estimate
- 154 bottom 6% of 8,033 towns 97 above the Spanish average (56)
Cost & economy
- Home price
- €3,089/m² bottom 16% of 306 towns 40% more than the Spanish average (€2,208/m²)
- Net income per person
- €12,263 bottom 21% of 8,059 towns 15% less than the Spanish average (€14,495)
- Income growth ’18–’23
- 21.1% bottom 22% of 6,605 towns
Schools
- Schools in town
- 28 top 2% of 7,042 towns
- Nearest international school
- 4 km top 2% of 8,132 towns
- PISA maths (region) regional estimate
- 473 #10 of 17 regions, −6 vs national 8 below the Spanish average (481)
Healthcare
- Drive to a hospital
- 0 min top 1% of 8,132 towns
- Nearest health centre
- no local data
- Surgical wait (region) regional estimate
- 88 days #6 of 17 regions, −15 days vs national 18% less than the Spanish average (108 days)
Getting around
- Drive to nearest airport
- 66 min top 42% of 8,132 towns
- Fibre-to-home coverage
- 98% top 14% of 8,132 towns 19% above the Spanish average (79%)
- 100 Mbps+ coverage
- 100% top 8% of 8,132 towns 17% above the Spanish average (83%)
Who lives here
- Population
- 77,211
- Born in Spain
- 59% 29.8% below the Spanish average (88.8%)
- Born elsewhere in EU/UK
- 11.4% 7.6% above the Spanish average (3.8%)
- U.S.-born residents
- 1.28 per 1,000
Numbers: SpainScore town dataset, derived from INE, AEMET, Mitma and the Catastro. Percentile chips count only the municipalities that report the figure — the "of n" says how many. Region-ranked figures (PISA, surgical waits) compare Spain's 17 comunidades autónomas. A blank means no municipal-level figure is published — not a zero.
The year, month by month
AEMET 30-year climate normals — what a January or an August actually feels like, not the annual average.
How does Benidorm 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 Benidorm against every one of Spain's 8,132 municipalities on your priorities. It sits about 39 min from Alacant/Alicante, if that's your anchor.
Take the quiz — rank Benidorm for you →Nearby towns
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