Bathing water
Cleanest Blue Flag beaches in Europe
875 Blue Flag beaches have an official EEA Excellent class. The list covers Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece only. Beach pages in other countries do not carry an official EEA class, so they are left off this page.
8 further beaches in these five countries are classed Good. They are not listed below. Excellent is the only class on this page.
How this list is chosen
Each beach has to be Blue Flag and have an official EEA bathing-water class of Excellent. The European Environment Agency publishes the bathing-water results. The class is a season of samples, not a test from the morning you swim. Blue Flag water quality standards explains the classes. The country ranking is on Blue Flag beaches by country.
Excellent beaches by region
Open a region for the beach list. Beaches with no region stay in the country total and are not given a region link.
Spain
- Valencian Community : 64 beaches
- Catalonia : 58 beaches
- Andalusia : 45 beaches
- Galicia : 42 beaches
- Canary Islands : 22 beaches
- Balearic Islands : 14 beaches
- Region of Murcia : 12 beaches
- Asturias : 5 beaches
- Cantabria : 3 beaches
- Melilla : 3 beaches
- Ceuta : 2 beaches
60 beaches have no region recorded.
France
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur : 61 beaches
- Occitania : 47 beaches
- Pays de la Loire : 17 beaches
- Nouvelle-Aquitaine : 16 beaches
- Brittany : 14 beaches
- Metropolitan France : 14 beaches
- Normandy : 7 beaches
- Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes : 4 beaches
- Corsica : 4 beaches
- Bourgogne – Franche-Comté : 2 beaches
- Grand Est : 2 beaches
- Réunion : 2 beaches
- Centre-Val de Loire : 1 beach
- Hauts-de-France : 1 beach
Greece
- Region of Crete : 35 beaches
- Northern Aegean : 30 beaches
- Central Macedonia : 25 beaches
- Thessaly : 17 beaches
- South Aegean : 16 beaches
- Peloponnese Region : 15 beaches
- Ioanian Islands : 11 beaches
- Central Greece : 10 beaches
- Attica : 6 beaches
- Eastern Macedonia and Thrace : 4 beaches
- Western Greece : 3 beaches
Portugal
- Faro : 30 beaches
- Lisbon : 14 beaches
- Porto : 12 beaches
- Coimbra : 9 beaches
- Leiria : 8 beaches
- Setúbal : 6 beaches
- Aveiro : 4 beaches
- Évora : 4 beaches
- Viana do Castelo : 4 beaches
- Braga : 3 beaches
- Beja : 2 beaches
- Castelo Branco : 2 beaches
- Bragança : 1 beach
- Portalegre : 1 beach
- Santarém : 1 beach
27 beaches have no region recorded.
What the rating does not tell you
An Excellent class does not tell you the wave height, the crowd, or whether a lifeguard is on duty. It also does not update itself while you are standing on the sand. Read the beach page, and the notice at the shore, before you swim.
Questions
Which countries are on this list?
Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece. These are the countries whose Blue Flag beach pages carry an official EEA bathing-water class. 875 of those beaches are classed Excellent.
Does Excellent mean the sea is clean today?
No. The class is the published EEA result for that bathing water. It is not a reading from the day you arrive, and it says nothing about waves, crowds, or lifeguards.