Property in Los Alcázares, on the western shore of the Mar Menor

The municipality covers a little under 20 km² and rises only a few metres above sea level. Sources give the coastline as either seven or nine kilometres. The beaches vary enormously: Las Palmeras is about 1,100 metres long and 35 metres wide, Manzanares 400 metres and just 10 metres wide. Playa del Espejo fronts the centre; La Concha and the marina sit at the southern end.

There is no old town. Los Alcázares only became a municipality of its own in 1983, when it was split off from Torre-Pacheco and San Javier — administratively the youngest town in the Region of Murcia. The centre is a dense low-rise grid of holiday apartments, bars and beachwear shops; what survives from earlier is the 1902 spa hotel Balneario La Encarnación and an aeronautical museum marking Spain's first seaplane base, established here in 1915.

To the south, around the La Serena golf course and the 16th-century Torre de Rame watchtower, the building is lower-density and the plots larger. To the north lie Los Narejos, Punta Calera and Las Salinas. Everyday life turns on the Tuesday street market and the square by the main Mercadona, and the pace is calmer than the high-rise strips of the Costa Blanca further north.

CREM, the Region of Murcia's statistics office, counted 19,402 residents in 2024 against 16,590 in 2020 — roughly 17% growth in four years, among the fastest in the region. Estimates for 2025 sit between 20,100 and 20,400. The exact figure depends on the source; the order of magnitude does not.

Around 37% of residents are either foreign nationals or foreign-born — two slightly different measures that land close together. The largest named groups are of Moroccan, British and Ecuadorian origin: labour migration and northern European buyers mixed, rather than a single-nationality retirement colony.

Most people live in the centre, which had 13,247 residents in 2024; Los Narejos had 3,033, Punta Calera 2,155, and the La Serena area fewer than a thousand.

What sells here is mostly two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhouses in the town centre and around Los Narejos and Punta Calera. Detached houses, bungalows and villas on larger plots are in the southern golf developments, La Serena and Lomas del Rame, and at Roda Golf just over the San Javier boundary. New-build stock is concentrated there rather than in the old core.

Prices have risen fast. Idealista's figures put the municipal average asking price at €1,956/m² in May 2025, up 28% on the year, and €2,018/m² by September. The spread between districts is wide: Los Narejos–Punta Calera was the cheapest zone at around €2,140/m², while Lomas del Rame–Bahía Bella around the La Serena golf course was the most expensive at €3,200–3,501/m². Other portals give markedly different figures for the same periods, roughly €1,800 to €3,800/m². The direction is more reliable than any single number.

Short-term letting is governed by Decree 256/2019 and requires registration as a tourist dwelling (VV); since 2025 the homeowners' association's consent is also needed. A Costa Blanca VT licence has no standing here: two regions, two separate systems.

The Mar Menor is Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, separated from the open sea by La Manga, a sand spit 22 km long. It is rarely more than seven metres deep, so the water warms up early in spring and stays warm into the autumn, and there are no currents. Los Alcázares sits on the lagoon's western shore.

That calm, warm water is exactly what makes the place easy with small children: no currents and no open-sea surf. It is also why the lagoon suits anyone learning to sail or windsurf — Club Náutico Mar Menor on Paseo de la Concha runs a sailing school, and the marina has around 280 berths and a slipway.

The coastline runs to seven or nine kilometres depending on the source, and the seven beaches are strung together by a single promenade from Los Narejos in the north to Punta Brava in the south. You can walk it, cycle it or run it in the morning without getting into a car once. The beaches vary a great deal in size: Playa del Espejo fronts the centre, and La Concha sits at the southern end beside the marina.