Murcia · Mar Menor
The Region of Murcia's youngest municipality, a Mar Menor spa coast with Roman baths behind it, the first Spanish seaplane base beside it and a flooding problem in front of it.
A coast people came to for its water
The name means the palaces or lodges, a place visited rather than lived in. A Roman villa with baths, timber balnearios over the water and the surviving Hotel Balneario de la Encarnación record a long tradition of taking the Mar Menor's warm salt water and its muds.
Los Alcázares only became a municipality in 1983. It also holds the site of Spain's first military seaplane base, opened in 1915, and now sits at the outfall of channels that flood it in autumn storms.
Fast facts
INE padrón, 1 Jan 2025
15,605 in 2015
Read Los Alcázares
How Roman baths, nineteenth-century balnearios, the 1915 seaplane station and a modern flooding problem shape the Region of Murcia's youngest municipality.
Published 1 September 2026
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