Data Investigation · July 2026
The Tiger Mosquito Map of Spain
In 2004 the Asian tiger mosquito was breeding in exactly one Spanish town. 22 years later it is established in 15 of Spain's 17 autonomous communities. We mapped the invasion, region by region — and put a slider on it.
Key Findings
🚗 It travelled by road, not by wing
A tiger mosquito flies 100–200 metres in its life. It crossed Spain in two decades because we carried it — eggs glued inside used tyres, plant pots, boat tenders and car footwells. The map traces motorways and ferry routes, not prevailing winds.
🧭 The north was invaded from France
The Basque Country and Navarra recorded detections in 2014 — the same year as Andalucía, and four years before Madrid. They weren't reached from the Mediterranean. A separate front came overland across the French border.
🏙️ Madrid broke the "coastal only" rule
The tiger mosquito was supposed to need maritime humidity. Then it established in Madrid in 2018. Irrigated gardens, shaded courtyards and plant-pot saucers turn out to be a perfectly good substitute for the sea.
🏝️ The Canaries are the holdout — just
Still no established population, but not for want of trying: tiger mosquitoes were caught in Tenerife in September 2023, and repeatedly since in port containers. Each incursion was trapped and fumigated out. Surveillance since 2013 is the only reason the islands are still clear — this one is holding, not won.
Watch It Spread: 2004 → 2026
Drag the slider — or press play — to see the invasion year by year. Each dot is a town we cover.
Dots are plotted at town centroids and coloured by the first confirmed detection year for their autonomous community. A town lights up when its region was first colonised — not necessarily the exact year that individual town recorded its first mosquito. See methodology.
Four Waves of Invasion
The bridgehead
2004–2008A single Catalan town. In 2004 Aedes albopictus was confirmed breeding in Sant Cugat del Vallès — the first established population in Spain. Within a year it had crossed into the Valencian coast.
The Mediterranean run
2009–2012The species followed the coastal motorway and holiday traffic south — Murcia, then the Balearics. Eggs survive dry for months in used tyres, plant pots and boat tenders, so every vehicle is a potential vector.
Two fronts, north and south
2013–2016Andalucía fell from Almería westward to the Costa del Sol. Simultaneously — and this surprises people — a second front opened in the Basque Country and Navarra, arriving overland from France rather than up from the south.
Into the interior
2017–2020The coast was full, so it went inland. Madrid in 2018 proved the mosquito no longer needs a maritime climate — irrigated gardens and shaded courtyards are enough. Galicia and Extremadura followed.
Consolidation
2021–2026No dramatic new frontiers — because there are few left. The story of the last five years is density: more municipalities inside already-colonised regions, longer breeding seasons as summers stretch, and a slow northward creep up the Ebro and along the Cantabrian coast. The Canary Islands remain the one significant holdout — and in September 2023 even that was tested, when tiger mosquitoes turned up in a Tenerife greenhouse and were trapped and fumigated out before they could settle.
First Detection by Region
Every autonomous community we cover, ordered by the year the tiger mosquito arrived
| Region | First detected | Status | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catalonia Barcelona, Empuriabrava, Sitges | 2004 | Widespread | The first established population in Spain — Sant Cugat del Vallès, just outside Barcelona. |
| Comunitat Valenciana Alicante, Albir, Benidorm | 2005 | Widespread | Jumped south along the coast within a year of the Catalan foothold. |
| Murcia Murcia City, Cartagena, Los Alcázares | 2011 | Widespread | Coastal resorts and the Mar Menor basin colonised. |
| Balearic Islands Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza Town, Menorca | 2012 | Widespread | Arrived with ferry and freight traffic — Ibiza first, then Mallorca. |
| Andalucía Málaga, Marbella, Fuengirola | 2014 | Established | Almería first, then the Costa del Sol — now the densest expat exposure in Spain. |
| País Vasco Bilbao, San Sebastián, Vitoria-Gasteiz | 2014 | Established | Entered from the French border via the Irún corridor — not from the south. |
| Navarra Pamplona, Tudela, Estella | 2014 | Established | Same northern corridor: motorway traffic carrying eggs in from France. |
| Aragón Zaragoza, Huesca, Teruel | 2015 | Established | The Ebro valley and the Zaragoza corridor. |
| Asturias & Cantabria Oviedo, Gijón, Santander | 2015 | Established | Cantabrian coast detections — cooler and slower to establish. |
| La Rioja Logroño, Calahorra, Haro | 2016 | Established | The Ebro corridor carried it further inland. |
| Madrid Madrid City, Alcobendas, Pozuelo | 2018 | Expanding | The big inland prize. Dry, but irrigation and shaded gardens sustain it. |
| Galicia Vigo, A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela | 2019 | Expanding | The Atlantic northwest — established despite the cool, wet climate. |
| Castilla-La Mancha Toledo, Cuenca, Albacete | 2019 | Expanding | Spread along the Madrid–Levante motorway axis. |
| Castilla y León Salamanca, Valladolid, Burgos | 2020 | Expanding | The northern meseta — sporadic at first, now recurring detections. |
| Extremadura Cáceres, Badajoz, Mérida | 2020 | Expanding | The western interior — among the last mainland frontiers to fall. |
| Canary Islands Tenerife South, Los Cristianos, Las Palmas | — | Not established | No established population. First tiger mosquito specimens were detected in Tenerife in September 2023 (a Tacoronte greenhouse and Santa Cruz), and again in port containers since — each time met with trapping and fumigation. Separately, Aedes aegypti was found in Fuerteventura in December 2017 and eradicated by 2019. |
Why This Particular Mosquito Matters
Spain always had mosquitoes. This one is different in three specific ways.
☀️ It bites in daylight
The common house mosquito hunts at dusk and after dark. The tiger mosquito bites through the morning and late afternoon — which is exactly when you're on the terrace. Every night-time defence you own (nets, plug-ins, the fan) is pointed at the wrong hours.
💧 It breeds in a bottle cap of water
It doesn't need a pond or a marsh. A plant-pot saucer, a blocked gutter, a forgotten bucket — that's a nursery. And because it only flies 100–200 metres, the mosquito biting you almost certainly hatched on your property or your neighbour's. That's bad news and good news: it means the problem is local, and so is the fix.
🦠 It's a competent disease vector
Aedes albopictus can transmit dengue, chikungunya and Zika, and Spain has recorded a small number of locally-acquired cases in recent years. Keep this in proportion: the risk to any individual resident is low, and the vast majority of bites are just itchy. The concern is structural — an established vector plus travellers arriving from regions where these viruses circulate. If you get a high fever, severe joint pain or a rash after being bitten, see a doctor.
The one habit that actually works
Spraying adults is theatre — they're replaced within days from breeding sites you haven't found. Source reduction is what works. Once a week, walk your terrace and garden and empty everything holding standing water — then scrub it. Eggs are glued to the container wall and survive being tipped out; only scrubbing removes them. Saucers, buckets, watering cans, pet bowls, gutters, drain traps, pool covers, kids' toys. Ten minutes a week beats any amount of insecticide.
Methodology & Sources
What the data is
The first confirmed detection year for Aedes albopictus in each Spanish autonomous community, compiled from European vector surveillance (the ECDC's Aedes albopictus distribution maps), the Spanish Mosquito Alert citizen-science project, and published first-record entomology reports.
What it isn't
These are detection years, not establishment years. A first record means someone caught one and confirmed the species; populations typically become locally abundant two to four years later. Detection also depends on someone looking — regions with active surveillance and engaged citizen-science reporters find it sooner, so early years in well-monitored regions may reflect better observation as much as earlier arrival.
How the map is built
Each dot is one of the 98 towns we cover, plotted at its published centroid coordinates (WGS-84) and coloured by its region's first detection year. A town lights up on the slider when its autonomous community was first colonised — we do not claim a per-town first-detection date, because reliable municipality-level data does not exist for most of Spain. Region-level is the honest resolution for this dataset.
Known limitations
Autonomous communities are large and internally uneven — the tiger mosquito is far denser on the Málaga coast than in inland Andalucía, though both share a 2014 colour. Years for the northern and interior regions are the least precise, as surveillance there is younger. Treat this map as the shape of an invasion, not a property-level risk score. For location-specific pressure, see our Pest Risk Index.
Free to reuse: journalists, bloggers and researchers are welcome to republish this map and the underlying table with attribution and a link to this page. Need a specific cut of the data or a higher-resolution export? Ask us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the tiger mosquito found in Spain? +
The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is now established in 15 of Spain's 17 autonomous communities. It is dense along the entire Mediterranean coast — Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Murcia, Andalucía and the Balearic Islands — and has spread inland to Madrid, Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, plus the northern strip from the Basque Country to Galicia. The Canary Islands are the main exception: specimens were detected in Tenerife in September 2023 and in port containers since, but each incursion has been eliminated and there is still no established population there.
When did the tiger mosquito arrive in Spain? +
The first established population was confirmed in 2004 in Sant Cugat del Vallès, near Barcelona. It reached the Valencian coast in 2005, Murcia by 2011, the Balearics by 2012, Andalucía by 2014 and Madrid by 2018. In roughly two decades it went from one town to most of the country.
How is the tiger mosquito different from a normal Spanish mosquito? +
Three ways that matter to you. It bites during the day — typically morning and late afternoon — not just at dusk, so mosquito nets and night-time plug-ins miss it. It is black with bright white stripes on its legs and a single white line down its back. And it breeds in tiny amounts of water: a saucer under a plant pot, a blocked gutter or a forgotten bucket is enough. It rarely flies more than 100–200 metres from where it hatched, which means if it is biting you, it is almost certainly breeding on your own property or your immediate neighbour's.
Does the tiger mosquito carry disease in Spain? +
It is a competent vector for dengue, chikungunya and Zika, and Spain has recorded a small number of locally-acquired dengue and West Nile cases in recent years. The realistic risk to any individual resident remains low, and the overwhelming majority of bites are simply itchy and unpleasant. The public-health concern is the combination of an established vector plus travellers arriving from areas where these viruses circulate. If you develop a high fever, severe joint pain or a rash after being bitten, see a doctor.
How do I get rid of tiger mosquitoes around my house? +
Source reduction beats spraying, because the adults you kill are replaced within days from breeding sites you have not found. Once a week, empty and scrub anything holding standing water: plant-pot saucers, pet bowls, buckets, watering cans, blocked gutters, drain traps, pool covers and children's toys. Scrubbing matters — eggs are glued to container walls and survive being tipped out. Cover water butts with mesh, keep pools chlorinated and circulating, and fit screens on windows you leave open during the day.
Is the tiger mosquito still spreading in Spain? +
Yes. The Mediterranean coast is saturated, so current expansion is inland and northward — up the Ebro valley, across the meseta and along the Cantabrian coast. Warmer, longer summers extend the breeding season each year, and surveillance keeps recording first detections in municipalities that had none a decade ago.
It's on your street. Now deal with it.
The map tells you it arrived. These tell you what to do about it — how to identify what bit you, when the season peaks where you live, and how to shut down the breeding sites on your own terrace.