The Madrid City Centre is a hub of popular tourist areas, located in the heart of the city of Madrid, Spain. Major streets speckled with famous historic buildings attribute to its equally unique cultural and artistic legacy.
The City Centre of Madrid is composed of prominent sectioned areas, respectively Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real, and Plaza de Colón. Puerta del Sol is the busiest area of the city and houses the primary government offices and the kilómetro cero, the emblematic centre of Spain. The major streets in the Madrid City Centre include the Gran Via, Alcalá Street, and Paseo de La Castellana.
Downtown Madrid has an expansive public transportation system consisting of metros, local railways, and public buses. Each network connects to the different areas of Madrid’s City Centre, intersecting at its heart.
The Puerta del Sol is notably the main plaza in the city centre of Madrid, named after a symbolic gate dating back to the 1500s. The gate had been painted with the sun, attributing to the “sol” portion of the name. When the plaza was first established it became the centrepiece of economic livelihood in Madrid and has remained an important focus of the city throughout the ages.