New record: 638 Spanish beaches awarded blue flags

benidorm beachBenidorm's beach

The blue flag, which recognises the best beaches every year for the good state of the water, the high level of beach services and the safety of bathers, will fly this summer on 638 Spanish beaches, which keeps Spain as the world leader for the last 30 consecutive years.

The Association for Environmental and Consumer Education (Adeac), promoter of the initiative, has published this Tuesday the data for 2024 where it highlights that Spain gets in total 18 blue flags more than last year: 638 for beaches (11 more than in 2023), 102 for marinas (five more than in 2023) and seven for tourist boats (two more than in 2023).

Globally, these blue awards are present in 52 countries, with Spain having the highest number of blue flags for beaches, followed by Greece and Turkey. With regard to marinas, Spain has the third highest number of blue flags (102), behind the Netherlands and France.

As a curious fact, Spain and Portugal will have 1,187 blue flags in 2024 (747 in Spain and 440 in Portugal), something that “does not happen anywhere else in the world”, which means that more than 23% of the blue flags flying in the world are in the Iberian Peninsula.

By autonomous communities, the Valencian Community continues to obtain the highest number of Blue Flags with a total of 159 (six more than last year), followed by Andalusia with 156 (eight more than last year), Galicia with 125 (the same as last year) and Catalonia with 118 (two fewer than last year).

In the remaining communities, according to the total number of badges, the Canary Islands stood out with 60 (the same as last year), the Balearic Islands with 46 (four more than last year), Murcia with 33 (one fewer than last year), Asturias with 17 (two more than last year), Cantabria with 10 (one fewer than last year), Extremadura with 11 (one more than last year), the Basque Country with four, Melilla with four, Ceuta with two and Madrid with one (the same as last year).




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