Urbanisation
Murcia · Mar Menor
La Manga del Mar Menor
A developed sandbar between the Mediterranean and the Mar Menor, shared by two councils and inseparable from the lagoon's environmental crisis.
One strip, two seas and two councils
A sandbar which became a planned coastal settlement
La Manga is a narrow sandy barrier with open Mediterranean water on one side and the shallow Mar Menor lagoon on the other. Large-scale development from the 1960s placed one long urbanisation over that natural structure.
It is not a municipality. Cartagena administers the southern section and San Javier the northern section, while the lagoon itself reaches four municipal shores and now has legal personhood under Spanish law.
La Manga is a planned strip shared between Cartagena and San Javier, so it has no separate municipal register or INE population row.
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One new contribution
New contribution · Summer 2026
La Manga and the Mar Menor: a sandbar between two seas
How a natural barrier became a two-council urbanisation and why nutrient pollution, lagoon monitoring and legal personhood now define its future.
Published 1 September 2026
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