alicia is a mosaic of landscapes, in which an endless list of places of natural interest is joined together. This is due to several reasons: the presence of a long coastal strip with continental areas; the differences in altitude; and the important climatic differences, and as a consequence, biogeographic differences; and lastly, due to its long history, during which men and women have deeply transformed the space around them.


The interior/coastal is a element that allows us to understand Galicia's natural diversity. The length of the Galician coast (one thousand two hundred kilometres)and its profile with numerous inlets and outlets caused by the series of estuaries, bays and capes, which form contrasting spaces result in a coastline with high cliffs, beaches, lakes and dunes, in front of which, like brushstrokes of rock painted in the sea, are islands and islets.

On the other hand, from the coast to the interior, different echelands can be noted in the land formation. On the same seashore there are a series of mountains, which reach altitudes of 500/700 metres, which become areas that differ in many ways from the world that surrounds them.

Land rises up to 1,100 metres in the western mountain range, drops to the interior of Lugo and Ourense, and then rises up again to 2,150 metres in the eastern mountains, at the borders with Asturias and Castile-Leon. The existence of rivers, and Galicia is the Land of One Thousand Rivers, deeply ingrained in the land, with deep and extends valleys. Horizontal and vertical land forms of differing altitudes the Galician relief.

The Galicia's position on the medium latitudes improves climatic contrasts. For example, the arrival of storms favours rainfalls. This is more intense in the western mountains due to the necessity of the clouds to ascend and discharge a large part of the water they carry to the interior of Spain. This explains that, for example, in the south east of Galicia more than 3000 mm of rain falls annually, and in the north sea side more than 3800 mm falls; in the opposite side to the southeast have only 900 millimetres falls. Still further to the east, in Valdeorras, in the Sil valley, the annual rainfall is 800 mm fall.

There is not, therefore, a uniform climate and there is marked differences among the different parts of Galicia. The human activity has been intense for at least two thousand years and this transform the landscape and the range of existing landscapes in Galicia and it variety of natural places of interest.