page_title: Benalmádena
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Benalmádena / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Restaurante El Embarcadero and playa de Arroyo Hondo, Benalmádena.
context_page_description: Benalmádena is a town in Andalusia in southern Spain, 12 km west of Málaga, on the Costa del Sol between Torremolinos and Fuengirola.
  Benalmádena is rich in attractive beaches and interesting places like the Colomares Castle, the 33-metre-tall Buddhist Benalmádena Stupa, the largest Buddhist stupa in Europe, the Benalmádena Marina and the Benalmádena Cable Car.
  Benalmádena covers an area of just over 27 km² that extends from the summits of the Sierra de Mijas to the sea, falling in some places as a cliff. The territory is crossed from east to west on Highway A-7, which connects with the provincial capital and other centres of the Mediterranean coast.
  With 61,383 inhabitants according to the INE census of 2010, Benalmádena is the eighth most populous municipality in the province and the third largest metropolitan area, behind Málaga and Torremolinos. The population is concentrated in three main centers: Benalmádena Pueblo, Arroyo de la Miel and Benalmádena Costa, although the high urban growth and demographic tends to unify the three cores.
  Benalmádena has been inhabited since prehistoric times.
context_section_description: The municipality has three main urban areas:
  Benalmádena Pueblo, the original village, which lies about three kilometres inland at an elevation of approximately 200 m above mean sea level. Its core consists of a typical white-fronted Andalusian village, although including numerous recent buildings in modern architectural styles. The town of Benalmádena also has an archaeological museum with locally derived artefacts dating back to the Bronze Age.
  Benalmádena Costa, an urban agglomeration on the coast.  Here there are discos, hotels, beaches, shopping centers and an extensively-equipped marina. Tourist attractions include SeaLife aquarium and Selwo Marina, a theme park with dolphins, penguins and seals among other species. The Parque Paloma is a more recent addition to the attractions, a landscaped park containing a large lake and animals running wild.
  Arroyo de la Miel (Honey Stream), originally a separate village, is in the interior between the other two areas. It has become the main residential area, and is also the most commercially active. Buildings, many of them apartment blocks. are tightly packed. It has attractions such as the Tivoli World amusement park, and a teleferico (cable car) running to the summit of the 769-metre Calamorro mountain, which provides panoramic views of the Sierra Nevada, Gibraltar and, on clear days, the Moroccan coastline.
caption: La Viborrilla Beach
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 50D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:02:20 14:58:14", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "360", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "8648", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "10536", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12517", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "13", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:02:20 14:58:14", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:02:20 14:58:14", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "59/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "59/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF SubSecTime": "65", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "65", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "65", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4752", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3168", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8602", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "792000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1056000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}