Alicante/Alacant · Comunidad Valenciana
Elx
Spain's palm-grove city — Europe's largest palm forest, the mysterious Dama de Elche bust, and a centuries-old mystery play give it three separate UNESCO World Heritage listings.
What Elx is like
Portrait drawn from the Michelin Green Guide & The Rough Guide.
16 miles (Michelin) / 20km (Rough Guide) inland and south of Alicante.
Worth the trip
- El Palmeral, Europe's largest palm grove, said to have been planted by the Phoenicians, UNESCO-listed since 2000 with over 200,000 palms
- Huerto del Cura, a landscaped private palm garden with a famed 'imperial palm' linked to Empress Sissi's 1894 visit
- La Dama de Elche, a renowned Iberian stone bust found here in 1897 (now in Madrid's Museo Arqueológico)
Fiestas
- Misteri d'Elx, a centuries-old mystery play performed 14–15 August in the Basílica Menor de Santa María
- Moros y Cristianos mock-battle celebrations
A little history
Palm groves originally planted by the Moors remain the town's chief industry: dates from the female trees, fronds from the males for Palm Sunday processions.
Who it suits: UNESCO/heritage-site travellers · Garden lovers
The numbers
The decision data — each figure against the Spanish average. Regional overlays and estimates are labelled, and where there's no local reading we say so plainly.
Climate
- Winter average temp
- 13°C 5.2°C above the Spanish average (7.8°C)
- Summer high (Jul–Aug)
- 30.5°C 0.3°C above the Spanish average (30.2°C)
- Rainy days a year
- 33 days 52% less than the Spanish average (69 days)
- Sunshine
- 8 h/day 10% more than the Spanish average (7.2 h/day)
- Summer water stress (WEI+) regional estimate
- 154 97 above the Spanish average (56)
Cost & economy
- Home price
- €1,684/m² 24% less than the Spanish average (€2,208/m²)
- Net income per person
- €11,849 18% less than the Spanish average (€14,495)
- Income growth ’18–’23
- 28.5%
Safety
- Recorded crime
- 40.4 per 1,000 8% less than the Spanish average (44 per 1,000)
Schools
- Schools in town
- 110
- Nearest international school
- 14 km
- PISA maths (region) regional estimate
- 473 8 below the Spanish average (481)
Healthcare
- Drive to a hospital
- 0 min
- Nearest health centre
- no local data
- Surgical wait (region) regional estimate
- 88 days 18% less than the Spanish average (108 days)
Getting around
- Drive to nearest airport
- 41 min
- Fibre-to-home coverage
- 96% 17% above the Spanish average (79%)
- 100 Mbps+ coverage
- 99% 15% above the Spanish average (83%)
Who lives here
- Population
- 245,575
- Born in Spain
- 81.4% 7.4% below the Spanish average (88.8%)
- Born elsewhere in EU/UK
- 3.5% 0.4% below the Spanish average (3.8%)
- U.S.-born residents
- 0.83 per 1,000
Numbers: SettleSpain town dataset, derived from INE, AEMET, Mitma, Ministerio del Interior and the Catastro. National average = the unweighted mean across all 8,132 Spanish municipalities with data. A blank means no municipal-level figure is published — not a zero.
How does Elx fit you?
These are the town's numbers. Whether it's your town depends on what you're optimising for — winter sun or mild summers, a city or a village, short medical waits, an easy flight home. The 3-minute quiz scores Elx against every one of Spain's 8,132 municipalities on your priorities. It sits about 25 min from Alacant/Alicante, if that's your anchor.
Take the quiz — rank Elx for you →Nearby towns
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