Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community

Autonomous communities of Spain

An autonomous community In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian .*Galician .*Basque . The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "nationalities and regions" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".Political power in Spain is...

 of Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada (Spain)

The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the region of provinces of Granada and Almería in Spain. It contains the highest point of continental Spain, Mulhacén at 3478 m above sea level....

 mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil

Genil

The Genil River is the main tributary of the river Guadalquivir in Andalusia, Spain. The Roman Singilis, its modern name derives from the Moorish rendering of the Roman name: Sinyil, Sannil, and Sinnil. The source of the Genil is in the Sierra Nevada mountains, north of its highest peak Mulhacén....

. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea level

Above mean sea level

The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...

, yet is only one hour from the Mediterranean coast, the Costa Tropical

Costa Tropical

Costa Tropical is a comarca in southern Spain, corresponding to the Mediterranean coastline of the province of Granada, Andalusia. It is also but less frequently called the “Costa de Granada” or "Costa Granadina"...

. Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station

Sierra Nevada Ski Station

The Sierra Nevada Ski Station is a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the province Granada in southeastern Spain. The ski area is on the northern slopes of Veleta, the third highest peak in Spain. This is the most southerly ski resort of Europe....

, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996

FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996

The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held at Sierra Nevada near Granada city in southeastern Spain, February 12-25, 1996. The championships were to be held in 1995, but were postponed due to lack of snow.-Medals table:...

 were held.

In the 2005 national census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

, the population of the city of Granada proper was 236,982, and the population of the entire urban area was estimated to be 472,638, ranking as the 13th-largest urban area of Spain.