Is ‘La España Vacía’ empty?
For decades, Spanish countryside inhabitants have been moving to the city and to the coastal regions. In a book in 2016, writer Sergio Molino used the term ‘La España vacía’ (empty Spain) and that struck a chord. The term is widely used, also in politics. Regions with a very low population density (less than 10 people per km2) are also called a ‘demographic desert’ in Spain, or ‘the Lapland of Spain’.
In the spring of 2025, I spent a week crossing such a demographic desert, Los Monegros. It is a comarca (a group of small municipalities) in Aragon, in northern Spain. The comarca is 2764 km2 in size (about 70 by 60 km by road) and has about 18,500 inhabitants (2022; in 1970 27.700). That means 7.6 inhabitants per km2, which is very little for a region without mountains or other physical obstacles. The population of Los Monegros continues to decline, especially in the small villages.
For Los Monegros, the Franco period was important. During the dictatorship (1936-1975), one goal was to increase agricultural production to make Spain more self-sufficient. Large-scale irrigation plans with reservoirs (embalses), canals, aqueducts and irrigation systems were implemented. And some 300 new villages (pueblos de colonización) were founded in Spain, with houses, a church and community facilities, for about 55,000 households. Los Monogros has 16 such pueblos.
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Los Monegros may qualify as a ‘Lapland of Spain’, but ‘La España vacía’ does not mean physically empty; no less than 69 percent of Los Monegros is used by the agricultural sector, mainly for grains and fodder crops. There are many big stables with pigs, there is a lot of agro-industry.
The villages are very quiet. Playgrounds are empty because schools have closed in the smaller villages, just like the shops and medical facilities. Even church services have been reduced to a bare minimum. Older people stay in the villages.
There is little traffic in the comarca, relatively many large trucks with cattle feed and with pigs from the sheds to the slaughterhouse. The photos were taken in the spring, so there is still little traffic before the harvest season.
The pueblos de colonización have lost their function as farming villages. The agricultural sector has undergone an increase in scale – as everywhere in Europe. The parcels of land that were allocated 60 years ago have proven to be far too small. That land has been taken over by big agricultural companies.
Are there signs of the future? Various programs to make the countryside attractive have had little success in stopping the exodus. In Los Monegros there has been investment in tourism, but I don't give it much chance. The Pyrenees, the green hills of Catalonia, Zaragoza, etc. are close. Only a few birdwatchers and hikers, some thrill seekers, and city dwellers who keep a parental home go to Los Monegros.
El Diario magazine (9/2021) was entitled: 'The cry of the Spanish interior. Empty, abandoned, depopulated, but it exists and is beginning to stir'. The “Teruel Existe!” citizens' movement (Teruel is a province in southern Aragon that is shrinking sharply) has organised itself politically and is forcing investment. It is getting emulation elsewhere. The countryside may be stirring, but whether that will stop the exodus remains to be seen.