In Spain there are long streets, very long streets, and in the Region of Murcia there is the Gran Vía de La Manga, designed for challenging marathons rather than relaxing walks. The numbers speak for themselves. The road from the entrance of La Manga to the Veneziola beach area is around 19 km long, a long stretch of asphalt that often makes it one of the longest streets in Spain, as some call it Gran Vía de les. Corts Catalanes is one of the most important roads in Barcelona, ​​but it is only 13 km long.

Streets fit for a long-distance runner.

Longest street? There is no official and recent study that has examined the subject in depth, but when it comes to pointing out the (extra) long streets in Spain, the finger is usually pointed to the Gran Vía de La Manga, in La Manga del Mar Menor. Of course, its dimensions attract attention. Its length of approximately 19 kilometers between the entrance to La Manga and the Veneziola region makes it stand out in studies such as the one dedicated to the subject by the real estate portal İdealista last year.

If we can enjoy it, it is largely due to the natural caprice of La Manga, a coastal strip that starts from Cabo de Palos and naturally separates the lagoon from the Mar Menor and separates it from the Mediterranean. The strip is located 20 km east of San Javier and 75 km southeast of the city of Murcia. “It is a unique natural resource in Europe; it is almost 24 km long from north to south and east to west, and its widest part is less than one”, says La Manga Consorcio, an organization supported by the municipal councils of Cartagena and San Javier, which serves the area in full.

Is this a controversial position? Yes, the Gran Vía de la Manga passes through a residential area washed by the waters of the Mar Menor, but if we are talking about urban streets, there are those who think that the largest is another: the Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes. It is one of the arteries of Barcelona and stretches for 13 km.

So long that, at least in 2015, it was estimated that there were 689 portals along the route. With these figures, the JLL company or the Avanzabus operator considered this street the kilometer-longest in the country, although it also takes into account the Murcian road, which is a few kilometers ahead of the Catalan road.

Are these the only streets that stand out? No. Leaving aside its extensive highway and motorway map, Spain can boast a street map with around 569 portals, according to İdealista, with particularly wide or crowded roads such as Calle Valéncia in Barcelona.

Also on the list is Calle de Alcalá in Madrid, which is 10.5 km long and has 544 portals, or Azalea de Alcobendas, also in the province of Madrid, which has about 480 portals. On roughly the same street is Aragó in Barcelona.

What about in other countries? The Murcian and Catalan roads are wide. Very extensive. But when an international perspective is adopted, they cease to be so striking. The key is precisely what is considered a “street”, but the 19 kilometers of Gran Vía de la Manga are of little value compared, for example, to Western Avenue in Chicago, which is over 35 kilometers long; or Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and Broadway (New York), which is over 30 kilometers long. If we look at the Guinness Book, we find an equally striking example, although it is described in its pages as “the longest straight road”: the 240 km long road built by King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

But perhaps the most striking example is Yonge Street in Toronto, for a time recorded by Guinness as the longest street in the world for its astonishing length; this street was actually responding to a calculation error: its technicians added the length of the street to Ontario Highway 11. According to Civitatis, its length is 56 km, but there are other references of different lengths.

Image | Wikipedia

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*A previous version of this article was published in September 2023.