Peter Nientied
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, in the media and in politics. Regions with a very low population density (less than 10 people per km2) are sometimes called a ‘demographic desert’, or ‘the Lapland of Spain’.
In the spring of 2025, I crossed one such a demographic desert, Los Monegros. It is a comarca (a group of small municipalities) in Aragón, in northern Spain. The comarca is 2.764 km2 in size (about 70 by 60 km by road). In 2022 it had about 18,500 inhabitants, in 1970 this number was 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) a 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 qualifies 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 big stables with pigs, there is agro-industry.
The small villages are quiet. Playgrounds are empty because schools have closed in the smaller villages, just like shops and medical facilities. Even church services have been reduced to a bare minimum. The population is greying. There is little traffic in the comarca, relatively many large trucks with cattle feed and with pigs from the sheds to the slaughterhouse. The main town of Sariñena (4200 inhabitants) is full of economic and social life.
The pueblos de colonización have lost their function as farming villages. The Spanish agricultural sector has industrialised and increased in scale – as everywhere in Europe. The parcels of land that were allocated 60 years ago have proven to be far too small.
Are there signs of the future? Various policies and programs to make the countryside more attractive have had little success in stopping the exodus. In Los Monegros there has been investment in tourism. The Pyrenees, the green hills of Catalunya, the city of Zaragoza, etc. are close. So far, mainly birdwatchers and hikers, some thrill seekers, and city dwellers who keep a parental home go to Los Monegros. Los Monegros deserves more attention.