Why Barcelona?

The tenth-most visited city in the world and the third-most visited in Europe, Barcelona is a unique blend of tradition and modernism, with a distinctive cultural and artistic heritage dating back over 2,000 years. With its Mediterranean climate, abundance of culture and cosmopolitan spirit, it is unsurprising that Barcelona is consistently named one of the happiest cities in the world.

Barcelona in figures

Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, has more than 1,600,000 inhabitants and is at the heart of a metropolitan area with almost 5,000,000 inhabitants, representing 63.4% and 10.1% of the total population of Catalonia and Spain, respectively.

City of Barcelona: 1.625.137 inhabitants (January 2017)

Metropolitan area: 4.820.887 inhabitants (January 2017)

Foreign population: 17,8% (2017)

Catalonia, GDP per capita (index UE 27=100): 112 (2015)

Catalan colleage students: 251.589 (2014-2015)

2 Catalan business schools in Europe’s top ten rank (January 2016)

Harbor total transit (milion tones): 48,6 (2016)

Airport Passengers: 44.154.693 (2016)

Total Companies (Province of Barcelona): 450.451 (January 2016)

Foreign companies (Catalonia): 6.507 (2016)

Hotel beds: 75.647 (2016)

Tourists: 9.065.650 (2016)

Cruise passengers: 2.683.594 (2016)