A lack of jobs and cultural offerings, combined with poor infrastructure and housing stock, have helped fuel the exodus. <\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s rural areas saw a 4.4% population decline between 2014 and 2023, according to a government report, even as the country\u2019s overall population grew by 2.6%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Spain, hundreds of villages are going to disappear due to a lack of younger people who want to make a life there,\u201d said Juan Jos\u00e9 Manzano, co-founder of the rural revitalisation organisation AlmaNatura.<\/p>\n
While 84% of Spain\u2019s territory is rural, only 16% of people live outside cities. <\/p>\n
Population density maps show vibrant clusters around the coastline and big cities, and empty stretches across the country\u2019s interior. <\/p>\n
This has contributed to fears that smaller towns and villages \u2013 as well as their centuries\u2019-old histories, traditions, and cultures \u2013 may eventually vanish. <\/p>\n
With fewer people around to maintain forests and vegetation, it also makes wildfire-prone regions even more vulnerable.<\/p>\n
To save these areas, public and private actors are experimenting with ways to reverse demographic decline, and the Government even has a ministry focused on the issue. At the same time, the stresses of cities are persuading more people to consider life in the countryside.<\/p>\n
Among the businesses catering to a more affluent demographic is Aldeas Abandonadas, a Spanish real estate agency that specialises in the sale of rural hamlets and villages. <\/p>\n
Recently, the company, which usually handles between six and seven contracts a year, has seen a rise in demand from foreigners and young people seeking to avoid high mortgages or simply relocate somewhere \u201cpeaceful and affordable\u201d, said its president, Elvira Fafian. <\/p>\n
Last year, the agency sold a rural town situated 40km from the city of Burgos in Castilla y Le\u00f3n to a Dutch couple for \u20ac350,000 ($690,000).<\/p>\n
The new owners of B\u00e1rcena de Bureba, a mathematician and computer scientist, plan to transform the town into an eco-village with a sustainability focus. They\u2019ll start by renovating four of the town\u2019s 62 houses, and hope that more people will eventually join with their own projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to do something good with our money,\u201d explained Maaike Geurts, the mathematician. \u201cAnd not sit in front of our computers our entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
It takes a village<\/p>\n
When Juan Ans\u00f3tegui and his brothers purchased Villalibado in 2007, he never imagined the town would become a tourist attraction.<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginally, the plan was just to build a few houses, a small retirement complex,\u201d Ans\u00f3tegui recalls. \u201cBut little by little, we got more ambitious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Located 30 minutes outside of Burgos, Villalibado had been abandoned for over three decades when the Ans\u00f3teguis bought most of its remaining structures. <\/p>\n
That included a handful of houses and a 12th-century Romanesque church. <\/p>\n
Over the years, the brothers restored most of the homes and built two swimming pools, a restaurant and bar and other amenities. <\/p>\n
They landscaped the grounds and outfitted the village to run on solar and geothermal energy. <\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s a popular destination for weddings, retreats, and big family gatherings. A group of scientists from San Francisco recently rented out part of the village next year to view a solar eclipse.<\/p>\n
While most residents are seasonal, a steady flow of visitors keeps Villalibado active year-round. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so happy to see the town alive again,\u201d said Alonso Manj\u00f3n, the Mayor. \u201cIt has also motivated us to maintain our own properties and carry out new projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its success has had spillover effects on neighbouring Villadiego, a 1500-person town and municipality located 4km away.<\/p>\n
\u00c1ngel Carret\u00f3n Castrillo, Mayor-President of the Villadiego City Council, says Ans\u00f3tegui\u2019s project has been \u201clike winning the lottery\u201d. <\/p>\n
Visitors from Villalibado come to buy produce, visit the six local museums, and spend time in its cafes and bars.<\/p>\n
As the larger town, Villadiego acts as an administrative centre for its neighbour, offering banks, schools, childcare and healthcare that would otherwise not be easily accessible. <\/p>\n
The restored church of Villalibado. Photo \/ Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen, Bloomberg via The Washington Post<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout good services to offer,\u201d said Carret\u00f3n Castrillo, \u201cyou stand little chance of attracting and getting people to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n
The town still struggles to retain residents, yet there have been some new arrivals. Celia, a museum guide in her late 20s, moved from Madrid to Villadiego in search of a quieter life. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t for me,\u201d she said of the capital. Six years later, she has no plans to leave.<\/p>\n
Like Villalibado, Villadiego comes alive in the high season. In contrast to most rural towns, where the demographics skew older, Villadiego was thrumming with children accompanied by grandparents and parents. <\/p>\n
Families shared meals in the main square. Young people in their 20s and 30s lounged with drinks and cigarettes, discussing their plans for the rest of the summer.<\/p>\n
But as Villalibado and Villadiego chart new courses, a cautionary tale is hidden in the wheat fields just 6km away. <\/p>\n
Villamor\u00f3n was once a 150-person village boasting the Church of Santiago Ap\u00f3stol, among the earliest Gothic-style churches in the province of Burgos. <\/p>\n
Now, its homes and small cemetery have been abandoned to nature, and the town could almost pass unnoticed were it not for the church.<\/p>\n
Good neighbours<\/p>\n
Ricardo Pad\u00edn and his family moved to Spain last September to escape difficult conditions in their native Venezuela. <\/p>\n
They first set themselves up near relatives in Alicante but knew they wanted to live in the countryside. While watching YouTube one day, Pad\u00edn, an artisanal knifemaker, came across a video about HolaPueblo, an initiative run by the AlmaNatura organisation that helps small-time entrepreneurs move to depopulated villages.<\/p>\n
Between 2020 and 2025, HolaPueblo has helped 85 families resettle across Spain, resulting in 58 new bakeries, bars, art studios and other businesses. The Pad\u00edns are now among them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I arrived in Spain, my greatest wish was to settle in Galicia, since it is the land where my grandparents were born,\u201d Pad\u00edn explained.<\/p>\n
Ricardo Pad\u00edn forges a knife in the workshop of his new home. He handcrafts blades using traditional methods. Photo \/ Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen, Bloomberg via The Washington Post<\/p>\n
Two months ago, the family moved to Plac\u00edn, a town with fewer than 200 inhabitants surrounded by mountains in Galicia\u2019s Ourense province. They found a rental house with a workshop where Pad\u00edn can forge knives, and already know all their neighbours.<\/p>\n
There are challenges, he acknowledged. Buying groceries and other essentials requires travelling to a nearby village, and their son\u2019s secondary school is several towns away. <\/p>\n
Pad\u00edn also makes TikTok and Instagram videos to promote his business, and he\u2019s struggled with reliable internet access. \u201cThe main drawback is that fibre optic internet doesn\u2019t reach Plac\u00edn,\u201d he explained, adding that he had to drive out of town to upload his videos.<\/p>\n
HolaPueblo is one of a growing number of initiatives focused on rural revitalisation. <\/p>\n
Its organisers don\u2019t collect economic data, but Manzano, the co-founder, notes that the arrival of new families in rural areas generates \u201cimmediate economic activity\u201d through home purchases and spending at local businesses and often sets off a \u201cvirtuous cycle\u201d that draws more newcomers over time.<\/p>\n
There are signs that depopulation in areas like Galicia and Castilla y Le\u00f3n is starting to slow. <\/p>\n
While the overall number of deaths still outpace births, a 2019 study by La Caixa Foundation\u2019s Social Observatory found that a \u201cgenerational renewal\u201d is starting to take place. <\/p>\n
In municipalities with fewer than 10,000 residents, the study found that nearly 10% were born abroad, and that most were between the ages of 20 and 39.<\/p>\n
Lasting effects<\/p>\n
While individual efforts to revitalise Spain\u2019s towns and villages can have local impact, experts like Miguel Gonz\u00e1lez-Leonardo, an independent researcher on population studies, say that structural measures are the only way to catalyse greater change. <\/p>\n
Some are slowly being enacted: at the government level, authorities in some regions offer grants, subsidies and tax deductions to incentivise people to move there. <\/p>\n
In Andalucia, financial support is available to anybody interested in purchasing a home in a village with fewer than 3000 inhabitants, and on a national scale, the Government allocated \u20ac10 billion in 2021 to combat depopulation.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s too soon to say whether these policies have made an impact, they\u2019re relatively small-scale, and Gonz\u00e1lez-Leonardo doesn\u2019t expect any dramatic reversals. <\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a few years,\u201d he said of underpopulated areas, \u201csome of these municipalities will likely disappear. There\u2019s no economic activity, and there aren\u2019t many policies or resources that can realistically be leveraged.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, as more attention is focused on regions that have long been overlooked, people are starting to take a deeper interest in life outside cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople come to visit every day: tourists, curious travellers. It\u2019s generating real interest,\u201d Ans\u00f3tegui said of his own small town. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible to see how an abandoned village can be transformed into a tourist destination that attracts people from all over the world.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/b><\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium <\/b>here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of jobs and cultural offerings, combined with poor infrastructure and housing stock, have helped fuel the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5312],"tags":[92101,5176,74436,14119,145694,52652,13012,58959,1228,2000,299,75445,145696,3673,62499,145695,78518,99201,3783,104,13039,6093,19777,57881,26],"class_list":["post-427082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-alone","tag-and","tag-areas","tag-being","tag-castilla","tag-create","tag-creative","tag-do","tag-driving","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-finding","tag-impression","tag-it","tag-its","tag-len","tag-northwest","tag-rural","tag-save","tag-spain","tag-through","tag-to","tag-wants","tag-ways","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115210110179913472","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}