Es Castell
Es Castell is the smallest of eastern Menorca's towns, with around eight thousand residents. It stands at the mouth of Maó harbour and was founded by the British in the eighteenth century around a garrison; until recently it was called Villacarlos. Its layout is therefore unusual for the island — a regular grid around a parade ground.
Three kilometres separate it from the capital, and in practice it is a continuation of it: the hospital 8 minutes away and the airport 10. Living without a car is easier here than inland. The square metre costs more than in Maó, which its position by the water explains. In winter, like the whole island, the town goes quiet: load sits at the bottom of the scale from December to February, and few places stay open.
- Maó · 3 km — the island capital, the hospital and the airport
- Cala Sant Esteve · 2 km — the cove with Fort Marlborough
- La Mola · 7 km — the nineteenth-century fortress on the headland
Es Castell sits in Menorca, right on the water. From November to March the town empties out: our rating is 1 out of 5. A resort in summer, shuttered bars and thin transport in winter. You can live here without a car: our rating is 4 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast. The airport is 10 minutes away, closer than for most places in the database.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · ratings for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.
Es Castell sea temperature by month
5 months above 20 °CsourceAverage sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 7.2 km from the centre.
Tourist load
Es Castell beaches and water quality
sourceEs Castell has 1 beach tested under EU bathing water rules, at 1 sampling point. In the 2025 season, it was graded excellent. The last “poor” grade here was in 2015: Playa Cala Pedrera.
The grade is bacteria in water samples over the last four seasons — not sand, views or crowds. “Poor” means bathing there is advised against.
| Beach | From the centre | Grade 2025 | “Excellent” in a row | Last “poor” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playa Sant Esteve | 2.1 km | excellent | 9 seasons | none since 1993 |
No longer tested: Playa Cala Pedrera (last season 2015).
Where from: European Environment Agency, bathing water register, seasons 1990–2025, licence CC BY 4.0. Distance is from the centre in a straight line. Every place in one table
On the map
What tenants actually pay
sourcedThis is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 617 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 050 € for a two-bedroom.
The point of the 75th percentile: it is closer to what is being signed now than the median. The gap between them shows how much a new tenant overpays relative to long-standing ones.
Where from: SERPAVI, Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: Es Castell
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 780 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 050 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 370 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 550 €/mo | SERPAVI · 71 m² |
Asking prices are what long lets are advertised at today; the registry is what tenants pay on signed leases, including old ones. The gap between them is your negotiating argument.
Schools nearby
estimateInternational schools counted in the base: 0. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.
Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —Stock goes to tourist lets: long leases are scarce and competed for
This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nómina is an individual landlord's practice and nobody publishes it. The rating is derived from the share of foreign residents, the presence of a community with services, price growth, seasonality of the stock and the size of the town.
Who lives here
INE 2025- United Kingdom305
- Italy162
- Morocco111
- Colombia59
- France51
- Argentina47
- Bulgaria44
- Romania37
- enEnglish~700
Where from: INE, Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrón registrations by citizenship on 1 January, not everyone living here: seasonal owners and the unregistered are outside it, and naturalised residents count as Spanish.
Winter direct flights from MAH
January 2026/2710 min to the airport- United Kingdom1
Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.
Paperwork and practicalities
From OpenStreetMap — an open map filled in by volunteers. Something missing there may still exist: read this as «we found this many», not «there are no more».
Articles that include this place
- Menorca's beaches by water quality: excellent across the island, except near CiutadellaGrades from the European register for every sampling point on Menorca since 1990: the shore near Ciutadella against the rest of the island season by season, a beach with two points and two different grades, a point that stopped being tested, eight municipalities and the sea at our four places month by month.
- Mallorca or Menorca: winter, jobs, rent and prices, measuredSeven places on the two islands, by state data: how much work is left in winter, what tenants pay, the price per square metre on one basis, who the neighbours are, and how far the hospital is.
- Mallorca or Majorca: one island, two spellings — and what the numbers sayIt is the same island, and the official name is Mallorca. Then the part no spelling guide covers: of the places we cover there, only the capital stays open in winter, and the water varies beach by beach.
- Where are the Balearic Islands? Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and FormenteraSpain, not a country of their own. Which island is where and how far from Barcelona and Valencia, why winter splits the islands, the sea month by month, and the water at each island's beaches.
- Cost of living in Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza: spending, rent and pay from government dataWhat island households spend and on what, what tenants pay in twelve towns on three islands, and what people here earn — with the survey's margin of error, and no guessed baskets.
Where to look next
- Maó / Mahón2 981 €/m²
- Alaior2 600 €/m²
- Ciutadella de Menorca4 077 €/m²
- Mataró2 512 €/m²
- Cambrils2 413 €/m²
- Lloret de Mar2 393 €/m²