Galicia provinces

The autonomous community of Galicia is divided into four provinces that make up the region of Galicia as a whole. Each province has its own provincial capital city and each of these capitals takes its name from the province that it represents.

The provinces are, la Coruna, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo.

The capital of the Galician region is Santiago de Compostela which lies in the la Coruna province, however, just to complicate matters, it is not the capital of the la Coruna province itself. Below you will find some general information about each of these four provinces.

La Coruna

This is the best known and most prosperous of the four provinces and it has three cities, la Coruna itself, Santiago de Compostela and Ferrol.

La Coruna has a long coastal border and a number of tourist attracting towns within it. It also possesses two international airports and the regional parliament. La Coruna attracts more overseas tourists than the other three provinces combined. It is also the easiest province to explore without a car and many of its visitors confine their stay to Santiago de Compostela, possibly with a day trip to la Coruna city.

Pontevedra

With Galicia's largest city, Vigo, the Pontevedra province has a powerful economy and is popular with domestic and overseas tourists. In summer it is very popular with spaniards from southern and central Spain.

Pontevedra province also has the small city of Tui and a significant coastline containing many beaches. Pontevedra is known for having the best climate in the region, no doubt due to its comparatively southern location. Vigo city has a small international airport and the province has both an agricultural and seafaring heritage. An increasing number of foreign tourists split their Galician holiday between stays in la Coruna's Santiago de Compostela and either Pontevedra or Vigo.

Ourense

As Galicia's only province without a coastline, Ourense has historically been a farming community and is also the region's least economically prosperous territory. With a driving time of one and a half to two hours from Santiago de Compostela, Ourense's capital is relatively unvisited by tourists, however its often mountainous and river filled scenery is amongst the best in Spain.

The main drawback to visiting the southern and more inland parts of Ourense is its relative inaccessibility by motorway routes. With no major roads linking to it from any of the other regional capitals, getting to Ourense can take a fair bit of travelling time by car.

Lugo

Geographically Lugo is the largest of the four provinces and it manages to touch the coast as well as encompassing large swathes of hilly and mountainous landscapes.

Although the province of Lugo's most popular tourist attraction is the capital city with its Roman walled old town, Lugo has a number of other interesting towns and some truly spectacular scenery.

Like the other provinces, Lugo also possesses a number of Celtic ruins known as Castros and it has some hill forts, monasteries and tiny villages, some precariously perched on mountain tops.

Lugo and Ourense "may be" the best provinces for those wishing to explore rural Galicia, especially if they have hired their own transport. However, you will be further from "normalized" civilization in these more rural provinces.