This paper has two main aims: on the one hand, it provides an overview of recent metropolitan area population changes in Spain and assesses their spatial patterns through a typology and on the other hand, it analyses the impact of the current economic crisis on the aforementioned trends. The main source used is the Padrón continuo, the local continuous registration system providing official data updated every year on 1 January. Regarding metropolitan area delimitation, we have decided to use that employed by the Atlas de las Áreas Urbanas de España and to situate the population threshold at 500,000 inhabitants. Fifteen urban areas satisfied the requirements. Therefore, this paper analyses, for the 2001–2011 decade, population growth and urban expansion in the 15 Spanish largest metropolitan areas. In the first phase, suburbanisation intensified while the areas simultaneously received significant international migration inflows. The latter compensated Spaniards’ exit flows from core cities, which increased their population again. The economic crisis, which began in 2008, and its significant impact on the real estate sector, drew an end to this urban expansion and growth period, as it seems to have slowed Spanish metropolitan area growth and restrained suburbanisation dynamics. Consequently, in recent years, residential mobility has decreased and metropolitan areas have entered a new phase characterised by a reduction of both foreign immigration inflows and Spaniards’ movements away from core cities. Therefore, with few exceptions, urban centres are currently once again gaining Spanish residents or at least have stopped losing them.

This last decade, main Spanish urban areas have received large amounts of international immigrants, modifying (sub)urban dynamics. The paper specifically explores the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (RMB), where, between 1998 and 2009, foreign nationality residents rose from 1.8 to 14.9% of total population. Research focuses on the impact of foreign immigration on three specific dynamics: population growth and distribution/segregation of both Spanish and foreign populations within the metropolitan area; their respective residential mobility patterns; and consequences on their age and sex structure. Results show that there are remarkable differences between the two populations: foreign immigrants have preferably settled in the core city's least affluent neighbourhoods and, in a second phase, in inner ring municipalities, while the Spanish population continues to move to suburban municipalities.

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Until 2008-the beginning of the economic crisis-Spanish metropolitan areas were characterised by relatively high residential mobility, suburbanisation, and urban sprawl. Municipalities situated farthest away from the core cities were the areas that were expanding more rapidly, while urban cores were losing native population that was being replaced by foreign immigrants. All these features presumably changed when the Great Recession hit the Spanish economy and the housing bubble burst. Using two INE (Spanish National Statistical Institute) data sources, the Padrón, or local register, and the Estadística de Variaciones Residenciales, or residential moves statistics, this paper studies changing trends in residential mobility and migration between 1999 and 2012 in Spain, focusing on the country's main urban areas: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville. In particular, internal migration patterns during the economic expansion and crisis periods are compared. Despite the fact that high unemployment since 2008 has certainly affected pre-crisis trends, results show that residential mobility has decreased much less than expected. Nevertheless, territorial patterns have changed and are now much less polarised. Urban cores and inner-ring towns, which had previously been losing inhabitants because of people moving to outer-ring areas, are now losing less native population. By contrast, suburban municipalities, which had been the most attractive to internal migrants during the economic growth period, are now much less appealing, as corroborated by the fact that practically no new housing is being built in these areas and their housing market has plummeted.

This article analyses, from a demographic perspective, how foreign immigration has affected Catalan municipalities under 1000 inhabitants. After decades losing population, this group of villages is, despite its on‐going negative natural growth rate, recently regaining population due to immigration. Nevertheless, not all these municipalities have followed the same path. The local population register or Padrón has been used to build a typology which classifies these villages on the basis of their Spanish and foreign population growth between 1996 and 2009. Results show that, despite practically all of them receiving foreign immigrants, approximately half still decrease in population or have poor increases. Therefore, the international immigration boom has emphasised the spatial dichotomy between a few dynamic rural areas and the rest, which largely occupy inland Catalonia. Only tourist municipalities, mainly receiving foreign immigrants, and those located near urban centres, basically benefiting from Spanish nationality suburban flows, have been able to clearly put an end to depopulation.

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