Barcelona's city beaches

Barcelona's shoreline is largely engineering. The northern stretch was laid out when the city turned its waterfront around for the 1992 Olympics, extended again towards the Besòs for the 2004 Fòrum, and topped up by lorry after most winters: storm Gloria took ten to twenty per cent of the surface off in January 2020. What that buys a swimmer is documentation, because the public health agency samples bathing water and sand weekly at every one of the ten between April and September. Running southwest to northeast, from the old fishermen's end beside the port to the sand-free bathing deck at the river mouth.

Places in this collection

  • Fòrum — Not a beach but a bathing zone inside the Parc del Fòrum, with no sand at all: you walk in off paved surfaces and drop straight into deep w…
  • Llevant — The newest of them, opened in 2006 when a breakwater was removed: about 375 metres long and 74 metres wide on average, between Nova Mar Bel…
  • Nova Mar Bella — Roughly 420 metres between Mar Bella and Llevant, built along with Mar Bella when the 1992 works reclaimed this part of the coast. It is th…
  • Mar Bella — Some 500 metres between Bogatell and Nova Mar Bella, created outright during the urban rebuild for the 1992 Olympics rather than inherited…
  • Bogatell — About 700 metres behind Poblenou, the longest of the municipal beaches, lying between Nova Icària and Mar Bella. It is the one the city pro…
  • Nova Icària — 415 metres at the centre of the city's coastline, behind the Vila Olímpica, between Somorrostro and Bogatell. It has a reputation as the ca…
  • Somorrostro — Roughly 522 metres running from the Gas breakwater to the Marina quay, directly in front of the Hospital del Mar. Until 1966 the shanty set…
  • Barceloneta — Around 400 metres between the Gas breakwater, also called the espigó de Ginebra, and Sant Miquel, backed by the eighteenth-century grid of…
  • Sant Miquel — About 420 metres long and 48 wide, wedged between Sant Sebastià and Barceloneta, which makes it the narrowest section of the old town's fou…
  • Sant Sebastià — The westernmost of the city beaches, roughly 660 metres of sand at the Barceloneta end of Ciutat Vella, and with Barceloneta the oldest and…

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