Alicante · Baix Vinalopó
Santa Pola
A fishing and salt-working town on the Bay of Santa Pola, where a 2,470-hectare wetland carries the old Albufera d'Elx landscape to the Mediterranean.
Salt works and waterbirds
A town between the salinas and the bay
Santa Pola faces a broad bay from the site of the Roman port that served Ilici, with a fishing harbour and a compact centre gathered around its sixteenth-century fortress.
West of the town, working salt pans preserve part of the old coastal wetland. Their managed water levels support flamingos, avocets and many other birds, making industry and conservation parts of the same landscape.
Read Santa Pola
One reviewed wetland story
The Salinas de Santa Pola: salt making, flamingos and a living wetland
How an old coastal lagoon became working salt pans and why managed brine, mud and marsh support one of southern Alicante's major bird sites.
Read the guide