The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in Aretxabaleta (Gipuzkoa)

Aretxabaleta sits at the midpoint of Gipuzkoa's only stretch of band, and its entry is worth reading above all as a measure of the gradient: 29 seconds of totality against the 43 of Leintz-Gatzaga, 8 kilometres up the valley. Fourteen seconds lost over eight kilometres, close to two per kilometre; northwards the fall continues, with 21 seconds in Arrasate/Mondragón, 5.8 kilometres away.

Rarely is it so plain that the edge of a totality band is not a line but a slope. In every other respect the municipality stood out neither well nor badly: 421 metres of average elevation, 2 degrees of obstruction under a Sun sitting at 8, and an 18.7 per cent clear-sky share for the date in the 1996-2025 record, an average of thirty Augusts rather than a chronicle of that one. Its totality, from 20:27:35 to 20:28:04, was the third longest in the province and earned it 46.2 index points.