Bilbao is located in the Iberian Peninsula, in its eastern Atlantic watershed -latitude: 43º 15' 42" N, longitude: 2º 55' 43" W-, 19 metres above sea level, and it covers an area of 41.6 square kilometres. Its impressive transportation infrastructure connects it to the rest of Europe by air, land and sea.

Bilbao is the core of a metropolitan area with more than one million inhabitants. Since its foundation, more than 700 years ago, it has been the fundamental factor and the main socio-economic axis around which the Vizcaya region has set its modernisation process in motion.

From Burdeos to La Coruña, Bilbao's hegemony is undisputable. No other city has better reasons to be the economic, financial, cultural and tourist capital of the region.