What Is "Empty Spain"? Understanding la España Vaciada

Aug 5
3 min read

Updated: Aug 9

If you spend any time reading about Spain, you will eventually run into the phrase la España vaciada, empty Spain. It is one of the most important things to understand about this country, especially if you are thinking of moving here, and almost no English-language guide bothers to explain it. So here it is.

The basic idea

From the 1950s and 60s, as Spain industrialized, millions of people left the countryside for Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and the coasts in search of work. The farms and villages they left behind never recovered. Two or three generations later, the interior, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Aragón, and others, is dotted with beautiful half-abandoned pueblos and a landscape that can feel almost untouched.

How it happened

It's the story of the rural exodus. From the 1950s and 60s, as Spain industrialized, millions of people left the countryside for Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and the coasts in search of work. The farms and villages they left behind never recovered. Two or three generations later, the interior is dotted with beautiful, half-abandoned pueblos and a landscape that can feel almost untouched.

The other half of this story is told in our post on Spain's overtourism problem: the famous places have too many of us, these places do not have enough. If a town like that sounds like your kind of life, we have also rounded up towns in Spain actively offering incentives to move in. And if you are weighing the move more broadly, start with moving to Spain, but where?

Empty Spain found its voice in 2019, when tens of thousands marched in Madrid under the banner "la Revuelta de la España Vaciada," the revolt of empty Spain, demanding roads, internet, trains, and basic services for the forgotten interior. A citizens' movement from Teruel, Teruel Existe, "Teruel Exists," even won a seat in the national parliament. The message was simple: these places are still here, and they're tired of being left behind.

What it means if you're thinking of moving to Spain

This is where it gets genuinely interesting for anyone considering a life here, because empty Spain is, in many ways, the opposite of the crowded, unaffordable Spain you read about in the news. Here you'll find:

Houses for a fraction of coastal or city prices, sometimes a whole village home for the price of a used car.
Towns actively offering incentives, money, jobs, even free or nearly-free housing, to families willing to move in and help keep them alive.
Real peace, dark skies, nature at the doorstep, and small communities that will actually welcome you by name.

The honest tradeoffs are just as real: fewer jobs, thinner public services, longer drives to a hospital or a big supermarket, and winters that can be quiet and cold. It isn't for everyone. But for the right person, a remote worker, a retiree, or a family that values space and community over convenience, empty Spain can be the best-value and most human corner of the whole country. Not every corner of "Empty Spain" is lacking service, it is possible to find the best of both worlds if you look.

The bigger picture

Empty Spain is exactly why we push back on the idea that visiting or moving to Spain is somehow a burden. The famous places have too many people. These places don't have enough. Spending your nights, your money, and maybe your future in the forgotten interior isn't taking anything away from anyone, it's giving a fading place a reason to keep going. It's the other half of the story we tell in how we travel around Spain's overtourism problem.

If a town like that sounds like your kind of life, we've rounded up the Spanish towns actually paying people to move in, and if you're weighing the move more broadly, start with moving to Spain, but where?