The smaller cities in northern Spain not only beat out Madrid and Barcelona in quality of life rankings, but also major international capitals.
Two Galician cities have outranked Madrid, Barcelona and other major Spanish cities to be crowned the Spanish cities with the highest quality of life.
According to Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2026 ranking, A Coruña and Vigo are the Spanish cities with the highest quality of life.
Although Spain’s major cities often top international rankings, smaller cities from the northern region of Galicia (A Coruña is home to around 250,000 people, Vigo 200,000) rarely gain global attention.
READ ALSO: The pros and cons of living in Spain’s Galicia region
Yet for the quality of life criteria, A Coruña ranked 68th and Vigo 83rd in the global ranking, a wide-ranging study that compared 1000 cities across 163 countries.
Oxford Economics cross-references its own economic forecasts with standardised public databases in order to measure different cities against the same criteria.
Results are organised into five broad categories, including Economy, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment and Governance,
Both A Coruña and Vigo outranked all other Spanish cities for quality of life, followed by Barcelona (88), Bilbao (93), Valencia (99) and Madrid (101).
Next were Valladolid (108), Palma de Mallorca (109), Las Palmas (115), Málaga (124), Zaragoza (141), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (146), Granada (170), Murcia (186), Seville (202) and Alicante (251).
The ranking comes amid not only efforts to improve local infrastructure in the Galician city in recent years, but also increasing concern across Spain about the impact of mass tourism and inflated property markets hitting local’s quality of living at the expense of foreigners.
READ ALSO: How Spaniards’ views on tourism keep getting more negative
In recent years, A Coruña has undertaken street regeneration projects that have created more space for pedestrians, reduced traffic, and improved accessibility in neighbourhoods via its 2025–2028 Neighbourhood Plan.
The city now has over 57 kilometres of bike lanes and public rental service BiciCoruña is breaking usage records, with more than 1.9 million journeys so far in 2026.
The ranking came as no surprise to the city’s mayor, however.
“Those of us who live here already knew that A Coruña is the best city in Spain, but it’s always good to have external, objective indicators to confirm this,” said mayor Inés Rey of the rankings, adding that the city can’t become complacent.
“The fact that we have the best quality of life in the country doesn’t mean that everything is perfect or that there’s no room for improvement. We may be the best in terms of cultural and leisure offerings, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop improving them,” she added.
Rey went on to tackle the main issue among Spaniards not only in A Coruña but across the country.
“It’s all very well to top that ranking, but I’d like to top another one: that of the Spanish city with the highest number of social rental properties,” she said, noting that in A Coruña access to a flat is a very serious problem for thousands of locals.
“The challenge is housing and ensuring that this city is just as good for those who can afford it as for those who cannot,” said Rey.
The Galician cities not only beat out major Spanish rivals in the quality of life rankings, however.
A Coruña ranked higher in terms of quality of living than Dublin (70) and Stockholm (77), while along with Vigo, in 83rd, both cities ranked above major international hubs like New York (86), Tokyo (99), London (147) and Copenhagen (160).
Nor is it the first time that cities in the northern region have topped domestic rankings for lifestyle and quality of life.
A 2023 study by Spain’s Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) named the Galician city of Vigo as the Spanish city with the best quality of life for its safety, cleanliness, education, environment, and air quality, an accolade they’ve earned several years on the trot.
The smaller city of Pontevedra has been referred to as Spain’s ‘most liveable city’, receiving praise from around the world for its urban planning which prioritises pedestrians over cars.
Galicia’s biggest city A Coruña, the economic hub of the region, has the longest beach promenade in Europe (13km), it’s a foodie’s paradise and has plenty of cultural offerings and green spaces.
