- Where
- Huelva and Seville provinces,
Andalusia, Spain - Coordinates
- 37.02° N
6.42° W (Ramsar site record) - National park
- Declared 16 October 1969;
54,252 hectares - Ramsar site
- No. 234, designated 4 May 1982;
111,646 hectares - Waterbirds, January 2026
- 385,649 of 88 species
(Doñana Biological Station) - Waterbirds, January 2024
- 43,989, the lowest January count
since 1973 (CSIC) - Best visited
- Autumn and winter
(the national park) - Advisory
- Spain Level 2
A village with streets of sand and rails outside the houses for tying up horses, and beyond it a marsh flat to the edge of the world, water lying in sheets with the sky in it. Geese went over talking, pink birds stood about on one leg, and horses grazed knee-deep in the shallows. Behind me, dunes and umbrella pines. I ran out of places to point.
The short answer
Doñana is the protected marsh, dune and woodland country at the mouth of the Guadalquivir in south-western Spain, in the provinces of Huelva and Seville. The national park, declared on 16 October 1969, covers 54,252 hectares and has been managed by the Junta de Andalucía, Andalusia’s regional government, since 1 July 2006; the Ramsar wetland, designated on 4 May 1982 and extended in 2007, covers 111,646 hectares. Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition describes three great ecological systems, marsh, moving dunes and the cotos, and calls the marsh of extraordinary importance as a place of passage, breeding and wintering for thousands of European and African birds; the Iberian imperial eagle, which the ministry calls Spain’s most threatened bird of prey, and the Iberian lynx both live there. The ministry recommends autumn and winter for a visit, for the wintering birds, fewer visitors and pleasant temperatures. Doñana is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1994) and a Biosphere Reserve (1981).
Why it's worth knowing
A marsh that the rest of Europe depends on. In December 2024 a team at the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) published a study in Global Change Biology that combined 38 years of local and international counts. It found that 9 of the 15 duck and goose species analysed had declined over 40 years with the loss of flooded area in the national park’s marsh. In the 1980s the greylag goose, the Eurasian wigeon and the common teal, birds of a well-flooded, productive marsh, were the most numerous winterers; today the northern shoveler and the northern pintail are. The authors found that conditions at Doñana help decide how Europe’s migratory duck and goose populations rise and fall from year to year: birds that winter in a poor Doñana return weakened to their breeding grounds, as far away as Denmark or Sweden. Rice fields, fish farms and salt pans, the study says, do not make up for the loss of natural marsh. “When Doñana is in a bad way, the consequences resonate across Europe,” said the lead author, Miguel de Felipe.
A count that follows the rain. Waterbirds have been counted at Doñana every month, from the air and on the ground, since 1973, and the January count is part of the International Waterbird Census coordinated by Wetlands International. The CSIC’s report on 2024, published on 31 January 2025, recorded 43,989 birds in January 2024, the lowest January figure in the series; in more than fifty years of counts, it said, the total had fallen below 100,000 only four times. The rain came back in the next winters. On 19 February 2026 the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) reported that its January 2026 count, made from light aircraft, vehicle routes and roost counts, recorded 385,649 birds of 88 species: more than in the two previous years, when drought brought historic lows, but below the average of about 437,000 for the 22 years since that combined method was adopted in 2004, and below the record of about 684,084 set in 1989, which was counted from the air alone. The two CSIC accounts describe the series differently: the 2025 report speaks of aerial and ground counts since 1973, while the station’s 2026 account says totals before 2004 came from aerial surveys only. The 2023–24 water year brought 434.4 mm of rain, below the historical mean of about 530 mm for a twelfth year running. The marsh stayed flooded for an average of 35.82 days against a historical mean of 62.75, the groundwater under one monitoring point fell by an average of 1.61 metres between 2020 and 2024, and the Santa Olalla lagoon, the largest in the park and once considered permanent, dried out for the third year running. The Ramsar Convention added Doñana to its Montreux Record of threatened sites in 1990, over fears that pumping from the regional aquifers was shortening the marsh’s seasonal flooding. In July 2025, BirdLife International reported, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee expressed concern at the decline in wintering waterbirds and asked Spain for an updated report by February 2026.
The field notes
Doña Ana's hut
After the Christian conquest of Seville in 1248, the ministry’s history says, Alfonso X made Doñana a royal hunting ground. The name appears in documents of the house of Medina Sidonia: in 1523 the sixth duke leased land to Sancho Herrera, governor of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and his wife Doña Ana Mallarte, who built a hut there known as the Hato de Doña Ana. Half a century later the seventh duke built a palace for his wife, Doña Ana Gómez de Mendoza y Silva, and for many years, the ministry notes, she was the one considered to have given the land its name. In the twentieth century the house of Medina Sidonia sold the estate to Guillermo Garvey, a wine-maker of Jerez, and the new owners brought in game, planted stone pines and held regular hunts.
From hunting ground to reserve
Scientific interest began in the nineteenth century with Antonio Machado y Núñez’s catalogue of the birds of Andalusia, the ministry writes, and so did an intense collecting of eggs and skins by naturalists and hunters that endangered some species. The wealth of wildlife drew ornithologists from around the world, who proposed in 1952 that the property be internationalised. In 1963 the Spanish state, working with the World Wildlife Fund, bought about 7,000 hectares to create the Doñana Biological Reserve; the national park followed six years later, was reclassified in 1978 and enlarged in 2004. It was added to the IUCN Green List of protected areas in 2015.
Beach, footpaths and the lynx hide
Anyone may walk the 33 kilometres of the national park’s beach between Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Matalascañas, the ministry says, and the old drove roads of the Raya Real and the Camino de Moguer, both starting at El Rocío, as well as a network of free footpaths. Most of the paths run on wooden boardwalks, and the hides have places for wheelchairs. La Rocina visitor centre, a kilometre from El Rocío, has the Charco de la Boca footpath; El Acebuche, near Matalascañas, has paths to the Acebuche lagoon and the Huerto and Pajas lagoons and an Iberian lynx observatory. The José Antonio Valverde centre, built in the style of the traditional marsh huts and looking over a restored marsh pool, stands in the middle of the marsh about 25 km from the nearest villages by unpaved tracks.
March 2017Dune, scrub and marsh in Doñana.
Photograph: Gabriela Coronado Hernández · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
May 2017Spoonbills standing on top of a stone pine in Doñana.
Photograph: Alejandro González Sánchez · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
April 2012Stone pines over a sandy track in Doñana.
Photograph: Nacho Pintos · Pinus pinea Doñana 1 · CC BY 2.0
- Come in the cool half of the year with binoculars, and give the marsh a whole morning rather than an hour.
- Walk out along the long empty beach at its edge, and turn round every so often to look inland.
- Book the guided drive ahead, then sit in the back and let someone who knows the tracks do the knowing.
- The sandy village is somebody’s home and somebody’s holy place. Walk it quietly, and leave the horse rails to the horses.
- Count the geese. (Abandoned at a number with too many figures to be polite. Item retained for next winter.)
A cone from a stone pine in Doñana’s cotos. The Ramsar record for Doñana lists stone-pine forest (Pinus pinea) among the site’s vegetation, and Spain’s environment ministry, in its history of the park, says that after the house of Medina Sidonia sold the estate to the Jerez wine-maker Guillermo Garvey in the twentieth century, the new owners brought in game animals, planted stone pines and held regular hunts there.
Tally, in the marginI carried a pine cone round all afternoon as the one ordinary thing in a place where everything else seemed to have flown in from somewhere. Only in the evening did I read that the pines had been planted too, which means I had spent the day admiring the one thing here that somebody chose.
Getting there
How to get there. From Seville, the ministry’s directions take the A-49 motorway towards Huelva, leaving it at the Bollullos Par del Condado / La Palma exit for the A-483 to Almonte, El Rocío and Matalascañas. From Huelva, the A-494 runs to Matalascañas. Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in the province of Cádiz, is reached by the A-471 from Lebrija or the A-480 from Jerez de la Frontera. Buses reach El Rocío, from which La Rocina visitor centre can be reached on foot; the Fábrica de Hielo centre in Sanlúcar has public transport from Seville and Cádiz; El Acebuche and the Palacio del Acebrón can be reached only by private vehicle.
When to go. The ministry calls autumn and winter the most favourable season, with fewer visitors, mild temperatures and the wintering birds. How much of the marsh holds water depends on the year’s rain, as the CSIC’s reports show, so the wintering crowd varies.
What to arrange ahead. The interior is visited on three guided routes run by licensed companies under the park’s control: two by four-wheel-drive vehicle and one by river boat from Sanlúcar de Barrameda to La Plancha and back. The ministry advises booking them some time ahead, because places are limited, and bringing binoculars. La Rocina opens from 9:00 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 18:00 from November to January (to 19:00 from February to October); El Acebuche from 8:00 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 19:00 from 16 September to 31 March, later in spring and summer. Both close on 1, 5 and 6 January, 24, 25 and 31 December and during the Romería del Rocío pilgrimage. As read on 29 October 2026, the ministry lists the José Antonio Valverde centre as closed for works until further notice.
Access. The ministry says all the national park’s visitor centres are adapted to reduce physical, intellectual and language barriers, the footpaths are laid on wooden boardwalks, and the hides are adapted for wheelchairs; some centres keep leaflets and maps in Braille, made by Spain’s national organisation of the blind.
Safety. The US State Department has Spain at Level 2, exercise increased caution, due to terrorism and unrest (advisory dated 1 August 2026); the one area it names for reconsidering travel is Ceuta. The ministry asks visitors to respect the park’s silence, take their rubbish home and follow the staff’s directions.
Mark this place
Common questions
When is the best time to see birds in Doñana?
Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition calls autumn and winter the most favourable season to visit Doñana National Park, with fewer visitors, mild temperatures and the wintering waterbirds. How much of the marsh is flooded depends on each year’s rain: in dry 2024 it held water for about 36 days, against a historical mean of about 63.
Can you visit Doñana National Park without a guide?
Yes, on its edges. The ministry says anyone may walk the 33 km of Doñana National Park’s beach between Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Matalascañas, the Raya Real and Camino de Moguer drove roads from El Rocío, and the visitor centres’ free footpaths. The interior is visited on guided four-wheel-drive and river-boat routes run by licensed companies.
How do you get to Doñana from Seville?
From Seville, the ministry’s directions take the A-49 towards Huelva to the Bollullos Par del Condado / La Palma exit, then the A-483 to Almonte, El Rocío and Matalascañas. Buses reach El Rocío, a walk from La Rocina visitor centre, and the Fábrica de Hielo centre in Sanlúcar de Barrameda has public transport from Seville.
Why are bird numbers falling in Doñana?
The CSIC’s report on Doñana in 2024 tied record-low waterbird numbers (43,989 in January 2024, the lowest January count since 1973) to drought and heat: the marsh stayed flooded for about 36 days instead of about 63, groundwater fell by an average of 1.61 metres between 2020 and 2024, and the Santa Olalla lagoon dried out. After a wetter winter, the Doñana Biological Station counted 385,649 waterbirds of 88 species in January 2026, more than in the two drought years before, but below its average of about 437,000 since 2004.
Why does Doñana matter to birds outside Spain?
A 2024 study by the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) in Global Change Biology, using 38 years of counts, found that conditions at Doñana help drive the year-to-year numbers of Europe’s migratory ducks and geese: birds that winter in a poor Doñana return weakened to breeding grounds as far away as Denmark and Sweden.
When did Doñana become a national park?
Doñana National Park was declared by decree on 16 October 1969, six years after the Spanish state and the World Wildlife Fund bought about 7,000 hectares to create the Doñana Biological Reserve. It was reclassified in 1978, enlarged in 2004 and now covers 54,252 hectares; the Junta de Andalucía has managed it since 2006.
Is Doñana a World Heritage Site?
Yes. Doñana National Park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994 and a Ramsar wetland since 1982. In July 2025, BirdLife International reported, the World Heritage Committee voiced concern at falling wintering waterbird numbers and asked Spain for an updated conservation report by February 2026; the Ramsar Convention has listed Doñana on its Montreux Record since 1990.
Can you see the Iberian lynx at Doñana?
Spain’s environment ministry says the Iberian lynx and the Iberian imperial eagle, both in serious danger of extinction, live in Doñana National Park, and it lists an Iberian lynx observatory at El Acebuche visitor centre near Matalascañas. It gives no sighting rate for either species.