UKC

What are the best maps for use in Spain? There are TONNES of crags with thousands of kilometres of trails, but I'm struggling to find good maps locally. 

What do you use and where did you source them?

Cheers!

Where in Spain ? The best maps I've used were produced by the L'Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (https://www.icgc.cat/ca/ ) but obviously they only cover Catalunya.

Thanks Doug. I'm in Murcia, close to the border with Alicante. 

None

We've used maps by Editorial Piolet and they worked well for us. Can't remember for sure, but very likely bought these from: https://campingsierraespuna.com - as we were staying there.

Good book shops will usually stock maps too.

It depends if you want actual topo maps like OS maps in the UK, or more like 'feature maps'.

The Spanish OS doppleganger is IGN (not to confuse with the French one, which is called... IGN) You can view all maps online or buy them in paper form from shops or online.

App a bit confusing. I like to select the layers "Maps in image format" and "MTN25" overlayed on top

http://centrodedescargas.cnig.es/CentroDescargas/locale?request_locale=en

In online/phone app form, have a look at the usual suspects like Mapy, Fatmap, etc. They are all very good for Spain and show actual crags, etc

About that link above, to get into the mapping app you need to click on any product, i.e. "Scanned paper maps", and then in any of the shown products click on the little magnifying glass bottom right corner with the profile of Spain inside, that says "search in viewfinder" when you hover. No need to buy the map even if it has a cart symbol on it.

That will bring you to the actual mapping software where you can use it as normal, add/remove layers, zoom, etc.

I thought the link given would take you direct to the map, but it seems they made a good effort to make it as confusing and hard to access as they could

Get OS&M app on your phone.

Great mapping with contours also available.

You can download mapping to phone, rather than rely on internet connection. Go for the one off payment options, rather than subscription, for unlimited map downloads with contours 

I've used it for walking/MTB in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany.

https://osmand.net/

Wikiloc, is very widespread in Spain for tracks, people download tonnes of trails onto a google map format (https://gl.wikiloc.com/). If you need real paper maps in Catalonia IGC maps are available, you also find maps to most natural parks in Decathlon or some book shops.

Cheers

Cheers rony, that's kind of you to give your input. 

There is a Spanish equivalent of 1:25,000 military grade which is probably the best, but having said that don't expect the high quality of our OS maps. At best I would say that they are good as indicative tools, but in my experience are full of errors. One of the reasons for this seems to be lack of recent upgrading, particularly in rural and mountainous districts where farmers are constantly making new access tracks, and allowing others to fall into disuse. 

The terrain suffers from regular flash flooding, and occasional earthquakes, resulting in landslips causing tracks to get washed away or blocked, so the farmers bulldoze out diversions. Also tracks serving high terraced fields, forests and olive/walnut groves don't necessarily go anywhere other than to individual fields, and mountain ramblers/gullies, before petering out, and what you find on the ground bears little relation to what is shown on the map!

I had a set of these maps military covering the Filabres Mountains bewtween Baza, Huercel Overa and Mojacar, which I got from Stanfords. It might be worth your contacting them for your area?

As you are in Murcia, did you know there is a rock climbing guide book in both Spanish and English covering the Sierra Espuna? ISBN 84-96396-09-6

Hope tis is helpful

Try the Costa blanca Mountain walkers website if looking for trails in your area. They could help. 

http://www.ign.es/iberpix2/visor/mobile.html

Any use?

I purchased the 1:25000 military maps from Stanford’s in London, Alicante up to Ganda. They are a bit confusing as the trails and contours are a very similar colour. Also they insist on putting almost every building in a similar colour. 
I use ViewRanger for off road biking in Spain and the maps are quite good and can be downloaded for offline use. You can also search for trails. 

Thanks all for your input. There's some stuff for my Christmas list here. Ta.

The GAIA GPS app lets you download the Spanish IGN maps when you pay the subscription. I bought the subscription for the French IGN maps this summer and have previously used it for skiing in Canada as well (seems to be the defacto navigation app for Canadians outdoors)

Subscription was about 23 quid I think, which is on par with the OS Maps app (also great, but UK only) and I would say good value if you're moving between areas or visiting multiple places in a year (we can but hope)

https://www.themapshop.co.uk/spainwalkingmaps.htm

free online mapping here

http://sigpac.mapama.gob.es/fega/visor/

I like this! But I think it might take some time to understand some of the features!!!

Do you know if you can download the maps onto a Garmin GPS?

This may help.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/08/how-to-install-free-maps-on-your-garmin...

Used this approach to get free maps-with-contours onto my Garmin Watch.

I still think the OpenStreetMapping with contours for Spain is more useful though (the Sat view is nice touch on the sigpac link).