Costa del Sol beach map: all 152 beaches in Málaga province on one map

We built this map because the question comes up in almost every buyer conversation we have, and it never comes up in the way a property portal expects. Nobody asks “what is the sea view coefficient of this apartment”. They ask whether they can walk to a beach with a lifeguard, whether it is sand or pebbles, and whether their dog can come. The public data to answer that has existed for years. It just sat in a government database that nobody outside Spain has ever opened.

What the Costa del Sol beach map shows

The beach map on plexoproperties.com plots all 152 beaches in Málaga province on a single interactive map. Beaches with a 2026 Blue Flag are marked separately, so you can filter the coast by that one signal at a glance. Below the map, the same 152 beaches are listed town by town, from Algarrobo with 2 beaches to Marbella with 25.

Select any beach and you land on its own page. Each page gives the beach’s position on the map, its length in metres, its average width, the municipality it belongs to, and whether it holds a Blue Flag this season. Every beach page also links to the other beaches in the same town, so you can compare, say, the nine beaches of Mijas without leaving the section.

I want to be clear about what it does not do. It is not a review site. There are no star ratings, no photos of chiringuitos, no opinions about which beach is prettiest. That is deliberate. The map carries only what the Junta de Andalucía measures and publishes, which makes it something you can rely on rather than something you have to take our word for. Opinions we save for the area guides.

How many beaches are there on the Costa del Sol?

There are 152 beaches on the Costa del Sol, counted the way the Junta de Andalucía counts them in the Catálogo General de Playas de Andalucía. That is the whole of Málaga province’s coast, from Playa de Punta Chullera on the Manilva side to the coves of Maro east of Nerja. Here is how they divide by town.

Town	Beaches	Plexo area guide
Marbella	25	Marbella, Marbella East
Nerja	24	Nerja
Benalmádena	22	Benalmádena
Estepona	17	Estepona
Málaga	16	Málaga
Mijas	9	La Cala de Mijas, Mijas Costa
Manilva	8
Vélez-Málaga	8
Torrox	6
Casares	4
Fuengirola	4	Fuengirola
Torremolinos	4	Torremolinos
Rincón de la Victoria	3
Algarrobo	2
Total	152

The count surprises people in two directions. Marbella having 25 named beaches sounds like a lot until you remember its coast runs from Guadalmina past Puerto Banús, the centre, Los Monteros and Las Chapas all the way to Cabopino. Fuengirola having only 4 sounds wrong to anyone who has walked its seafront, but the register divides that long seafront into four wide beaches rather than many small ones. Fuengirola’s beaches are few and long. Nerja’s are many and short.

Which Costa del Sol beaches have a Blue Flag in 2026?

ADEAC, the Spanish body that runs the Blue Flag programme, awarded 45 Blue Flags to beaches in Málaga province for 2026, according to its official 2026 award list. Across all of Andalucía the figure is 143 beaches. The Diputación de Málaga publishes the same list by municipality.

The map marks the flagged beaches from the Junta’s open data, which in a couple of cases groups two adjoining beaches under one entry where ADEAC lists them separately, so you will see 43 flags highlighted on the map against 45 awards on paper. The beaches are the same. If a flag matters to you, the beach page tells you.

Blue Flags are worth understanding rather than just counting. The award covers water quality, lifeguard cover, accessibility, toilets and showers, and environmental management. It is renewed every year, so a beach can gain or lose one. It does not measure beauty, and some of the coast’s best swimming spots, particularly the coves east of Nerja, never apply because they have no services at all. Read a Blue Flag as “well run”, not as “best”.

In the areas where we work, the 2026 flags include Playa La Cala and Playa El Bombo in La Cala de Mijas, El Chaparral and Calahonda in Mijas Costa, and Los Monteros, El Cable and Artola-Cabopino in Marbella East.

How to use the beach map when choosing where to buy

Beach access is one of the three or four things that decide whether a Costa del Sol purchase still feels right five years on. The map lets you check it properly before a viewing rather than discovering it after. Open the beach nearest the property, look at its length and width, then look at what sits either side of it.

Length and width tell you more than you would think. Playa La Cala is 1,315 m long and about 30 m wide, which is why it absorbs an August crowd without feeling packed. Playa Artola-Cabopino in Marbella East is 1,500 m long and backed by protected dunes, so it stays quiet even in high season. Playa El Bombo, just west of La Cala, is 622 m long and around 35 m wide, a proper neighbourhood beach rather than a resort one. Those are three different lifestyles inside 20 km of coast, and the numbers show it before the photos do.

Then move from the beach to the area. Every town in the table above links to the matching Costa del Sol area guide, which covers the property stock, schools, transport and prices behind that stretch of coast. For a side by side comparison of two of the most popular choices for Scandinavian buyers, our Mijas vs Estepona article does exactly that. If you already know the area and want to see what is for sale near a given beach, the new developments map plots current projects on the same coast.

Looking for a beach outside the Costa del Sol?

Málaga province is one coast out of five in Andalucía. Our sister site, Guide to Andalucía, runs a matching map of every beach in Andalucía: 503 beaches across Huelva, Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería, built from the same Junta de Andalucía register. It is the place to go when you want the Atlantic beaches of the Costa de la Luz, the quieter Costa Tropical around Almuñécar and Salobreña, or the Cabo de Gata coves in Almería.

The two maps are meant to be used together. Plexo covers the Costa del Sol in depth, with property and area guides behind every beach. Guide to Andalucía covers the whole region for travel and day trips. If you are buying in Marbella East but want a weekend on a 26 km Atlantic beach, that is where the second map earns its place. The Málaga page on Guide to Andalucía also gives a traveller’s view of the same 152 beaches this map covers.

Where the beach data comes from

Every beach on the map comes from the Catálogo General de Playas de Andalucía, the register the Junta de Andalucía maintains for its emergency and beach safety services, published as open data through the Instituto de Estadística y Cartografía de Andalucía (IECA) in the DERA spatial dataset. Blue Flag status comes from the Junta’s open data portal and is cross checked against ADEAC’s annual list. Both sources are licensed under CC BY 4.0, and the map credits them at the bottom of every page.

Because the data is official, it is also conservative. The register records what a beach is, where it is and how big it is. It does not record how busy it gets in August, whether the water is cold in May, or which chiringuito serves the best espetos. For that we have the area guides, and the plain fact that we live here and use these beaches ourselves. We refresh the Blue Flag layer each year when ADEAC publishes the new list, usually in May.

Written by Mikael Hansen, founder of Plexo Properties. Data checked 5 September 2026.

Frequently asked questions about Costa del Sol beaches

How many beaches does the Costa del Sol have?

The Costa del Sol has 152 beaches according to the Junta de Andalucía’s official beach register, spread across 14 coastal towns in Málaga province from Manilva to Nerja. Marbella has the most with 25, followed by Nerja with 24 and Benalmádena with 22.

How many Blue Flag beaches are there in Málaga province in 2026?

ADEAC awarded 45 Blue Flags to Málaga province beaches for the 2026 season. Marbella and Málaga city hold the most. The count is renewed every year, so a beach can gain or lose its flag from one season to the next.

Which beach is closest to La Cala de Mijas?

Playa La Cala is the main beach of La Cala de Mijas, 1,315 m long with an average width of about 30 m, and it holds a Blue Flag for 2026. Playa El Bombo, 622 m long, sits immediately to the west and also carries a 2026 Blue Flag.

Does the beach map show water temperature or crowd levels?

No. The map shows what the official register records: exact location, length, average width, municipality and Blue Flag status. It does not include water temperature, crowd levels, sand type or facilities, because those are not in the source data and we prefer not to publish figures we cannot verify.

Where can I find beaches in the rest of Andalucía?

The Guide to Andalucía beach map at guidetoandalucia.com/beaches covers all 503 beaches in Andalucía across Huelva, Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería, using the same Junta de Andalucía data. Use it for the Costa de la Luz, Costa Tropical and Costa de Almería.

How often is the beach map updated?

The beach geography comes from the Junta de Andalucía’s register and changes rarely. The Blue Flag layer is refreshed once a year after ADEAC publishes its award list, normally in May. The current data was checked on 5 September 2026.