Aranjuez

Alfonso VI took the lands along the Tagus, Aranjuez among them, after conquering the Taifa of Toledo in 1085. The kings of Castile later valued the well-watered river plain as a hunting ground and retreat, and in the second half of the 16th century a royal palace was built there; the enlarged settlement took the name Aranjuez in place of Alpajes. For almost two centuries the site was reserved for the royal family, the nobles of the court and palace servants.

The town as it stands is an 18th-century creation. In 1750 Ferdinand VI approved a plan for a new town and a scheme to bring drinking water from springs near Ocaña, and from 1752 visitors could stay overnight. A weir was built on the Tagus beside the palace in 1753 to drive a flour mill. Charles III built the Long Bridge over the Jarama in 1761 and a model farm north of the town, and a bullring was built. On 17 March 1808, with the court staying at Aranjuez as a French invasion loomed, a mutiny forced Charles IV to dismiss his minister Godoy, and two days later to abdicate in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII.

The railway arrived on 9 February 1851, with the Madrid–Aranjuez line, the second in the Iberian Peninsula. In the Civil War the battles of the Jarama and Seseña were fought not far away. A photographic film factory opened in 1950 and closed in 2001, the year UNESCO listed the Aranjuez Cultural Landscape as a World Heritage Site.

Aranjuez's fame owes much to music. Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez of 1939, for guitar and orchestra, was inspired by the royal gardens and became one of the best-known orchestral works of the 20th century; Rodrigo was later made Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez. The town keeps up the tradition with an early music festival, and the restored court theatre of Charles III reopened in 2014.

The town's identity is that of a royal site. Its palaces, the formal Parterre and the vast Prince's Garden along the Tagus, and the grid of streets laid out for the court, make up the cultural landscape UNESCO recognised in 2001, together with the river and its irrigated farmland. The bullring, opened in its refurbished form in 1797, is one of the oldest in Spain, and holds a small bullfighting museum.

The festival year starts with Alfaranjuez in May, a craft fair with traditional folk music, followed by the San Fernando festival week around 30 May. In the first week of September the town re-enacts the 1808 mutiny, an event of National Tourist Interest that ends with a concert at the Royal Palace. The river also shapes local life: canoeing, rowing and paddleboarding have a long tradition, and in summer families eat dinner at the picnic areas beside the Tagus.

About 63,000 people lived in the municipality in 2025. The population was only 4,226 in 1797 and about 12,670 at the start of the 20th century, when Aranjuez was the second town of the province after Madrid. It grew slowly until a boom in the 2000s and passed 50,000 for the first time in 2008. About 8,000 residents were foreign nationals in 2022, the largest groups from Romania and Morocco.

The economy mixes services, tourism and farming. In 2008 more than three quarters of local businesses were in services, and tourism grew strongly after the UNESCO listing until the 2008 recession; between 2001 and 2004 the number of pubs and restaurants rose by about a fifth. The fertile river plain suits wheat and other cereals, but farming now plays only a small part: labour-intensive crops such as strawberries and fruit trees have largely given way to crops that can be worked by machine. Industry lies west of the railway station and on an industrial estate to the south.

Daily life follows a slower rhythm than the capital's, with walks in the gardens and along the river and summer evenings outdoors.

Aranjuez is best known for two crops of its fertile valley: strawberries and asparagus. The town's irrigated orchards and vegetable gardens beside the Tagus have been known for them since the 18th century, when they began to be sold beyond the town, and the large strawberry known as the fresón is among its traditional crops. The old railway carried them to Madrid, and the Strawberry Train, a heritage service often pulled by a steam locomotive, still runs from Madrid on spring and autumn weekends.

Beyond the town, the wider Vega del Tajo grows vines around Villaconejos, which is also known for extensive melon production, and wheat and other cereals on the plain. The cooking of the town is that of the Madrid region, and the restaurants and bars of the historic centre, many opened in the early 2000s as tourism grew, serve the regional dishes alongside the local produce.

The most local custom is a simple one: on summer evenings, people take their dinner to the picnic areas by the river and eat outdoors in the cool beside the water.