National parks of Spain: all 16

TL;DR

Spain's national parks agency, the Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales, has 16 national parks in its boundary layer, from Ordesa and Picos de Europa, declared in 1918, to the Sierra de las Nieves in 2021. The ministry's overview of the national parks network gives the same number.¹²

Which national parks does the agency list?

The layer has 17 features: 16 national parks and the special protection area of the Sierra de Guadarrama national park, which we leave out because it is not a park in its own right.¹ The ministry's overview speaks of the 16 parks that make up the network today.²

National parks of Spain in the OAPN boundary layer
National park (as the data names it)	Declared (year)
Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido	1918¹
Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa	1918¹
Parque Nacional de la Caldera de Taburiente	1954¹
Parque Nacional del Teide	1954¹
Parque Nacional de Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici	1955¹
Parque Nacional de Doñana	1969¹
Parque Nacional de las Tablas de Daimiel	1973¹
Parque Nacional de Timanfaya	1974¹
Parque Nacional de Garajonay	1981¹
Parque Nacional Marítimo-Terrestre del Archipiélago de Cabrera	1991¹
Parque Nacional de Cabañeros	1995¹
Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada	1999¹
Parque Nacional Marítimo-Terrestre de las Islas Atlánticas de Galicia	2002¹
Parque Nacional de Monfragüe	2007¹
Parque Nacional de la Sierra de Guadarrama	2013¹
Parque Nacional de la Sierra de las Nieves	2021¹

We show the year only. For two parks, Picos de Europa and the Sierra de las Nieves, the day in the declaration date field differs from the day in the act it names, though the year is the same.¹

What does the year mean?

It is the year of the declaration date in the data, which goes with the act that declared or created each park, for example Decreto 2412/1969 for Doñana.¹

Can this list be reused?

The metadata of the agency's park boundary layer says access is public and free, gives the licence as CC BY 4.0, and asks users to name the source as Fuente: Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales. The metadata belongs to the dataset that MITECO publishes as a shapefile and a map service; we read the same layer through the agency's WFS service on the same server.¹

What this page cannot tell you

No regions here. The layer has no region field.
A proposed park is not here. Only declared national parks are in the layer.

Key takeaways

Spain has 16 national parks in the agency's layer, and the ministry gives the same number.
The first two were declared in 1918 and the newest in 2021.
The year is the year of the declaration.
What we would skip: reading the list as a ranking or a travel guide. It records an official designation; it says nothing about opening, access or conditions, so check each park's own information before you go.

Sources

The list comes from the Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales' park boundary layer and its metadata; the count also from MITECO's overview of the network. All read on 1 October 2026. See how we research.

Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales (OAPN), Límites de los parques nacionales (layer metadata, and the same layer through OAPN's WFS service); the WFS service. Read the metadata (PDF). Accessed 1 October 2026.
Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO), La Red de un vistazo. Read it on miteco.gob.es. Accessed 1 October 2026.

Credit and licence. Fuente: Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales (OAPN), Límites de los parques nacionales, https://sigred.oapn.es/geoserverOAPN/LimitesParquesNacionalesZPP/wfs - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Adapted (list extracted). CC BY 4.0. Changes made. List extracted from the boundary layer, with the year of each declaration; explanations translated into English. Gallivanting Gadabout is not connected with OAPN or MITECO, which do not take part in, sponsor or support this page. We use no logos or images from these sources.