Live cameras in Madrid, Spain

Madrid, Spain’s capital and largest city, sits on the high central plateau at around 660 meters above sea level, which makes it one of the highest capitals in Europe. The Manzanares River runs along its western side, and the municipality is home to about 3.5 million people. Wide avenues, dense apartment blocks, big parks such as the Retiro and a ring of fast urban motorways give the city its everyday rhythm.

Its own cameras on LiveLocation number more than 270, and they are all traffic cameras. Some come from the DGT, Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic, which watches the national road network, and others from the city’s own traffic service. Together they look over the M-30 inner ring, much of which runs underground in the long Calle 30 tunnels beside the Manzanares, the M-40 outer ring, and the radial motorways from the A-1 to the A-6 that fan out to the rest of Spain. You will also find views along major city streets such as the Paseo de la Castellana. Images refresh every few minutes, so think of them as frequent snapshots rather than video.

When to look

Madrid follows Central European Time, one hour ahead of GMT in winter and two hours ahead in summer (CEST). Because Spain sits far west in that time zone, summer evenings stay light until roughly 9:30 or 10 p.m., while winter mornings are dark until about 8:30. The busiest scenes come with the weekday morning rush and again in the early evening. July and August bring strong heat and dry, hazy light, and the city empties noticeably in August as residents head to the coast. Winters are cool and sunny for the most part, with an occasional snowfall that can make the ring roads look very different.

• Weekday morning and early-evening rush hours
• Quietest roads: August and Sunday mornings
• Rare snow days in winter make for unusual views

Two of the city’s districts, Chamartín and Ciudad Lineal, have their own pages with a closer focus, and the wider radius reaches the satellite towns of the Madrid region.

Sources: Madrid – Wikipedia · Autopista de Circunvalación M-30 – Wikipedia · Autopista de Circunvalación M-40 – Wikipedia.