Gallery › Barcelona
Map of Barcelona
Few cities are recognised so quickly from above. A perfect grid, a diagonal slicing through it from side to side and, right by the sea, an old town that pays it no attention at all.
What you see on the map
The Eixample. The extension planned by Ildefons Cerdà in the mid nineteenth century: identical blocks with their corners cut off at an angle. Drawn in lines it is an almost textile pattern, and it is what makes the map unmistakable.
The Diagonal, the Meridiana and the Paral·lel. The great avenues that break the grid at an angle and give it direction.
Ciutat Vella. The Gothic Quarter, El Born and El Raval: narrow, crooked streets, the perfect counterpoint to the order around them. With the pedestrian streets drawn in, its pattern can be read.
The seafront. The harbour, La Barceloneta and the beaches, with the sea filled with shore lines; and to the south-west, the green mass of Montjuïc.
Which scale and paper suit it
1:25,000 on a 30 cm square, as in the picture, takes in the whole central city, from the harbour to the Diagonal. At that scale buildings are drawn as blocks, here with their outline, which is what lets the clean grid show, cut corners included.
1:10,000 on A3 goes down to detail: a piece of the Eixample with every building and every inner courtyard, or the whole of Ciutat Vella with all its alleys.
Circle or rectangle. The circle, centred on the Eixample, leaves the sea peeking in at the bottom. A landscape rectangle follows the line of the coast.
Make it yours
Open the example and move the frame: Gràcia, Sants, Poblenou or Sarrià each have their own pattern and deserve their own map.
Change all the colours at once with a theme (black ink, sepia, night, blueprint) . Then download it as PNG; with a free account, also element by element, at 600 dpi, as vector PDF and as SVG.
