Municipalities in Gipuzkoa within the path of totality

Observation guide

Gipuzkoa took part in the eclipse with just six municipalities, all of them in the upper Deba valley in the southwestern corner of the province. Neither San Sebastián nor the coastline fell inside the path of totality. The longest duration was at Leintz-Gatzaga with 43 seconds, and it dropped away quickly heading north: 35 seconds at Eskoriatza, 29 at Aretxabaleta, 21 at Arrasate/Mondragón and 19 at Oñati. Half the event disappeared over a handful of kilometres, so here an observer's exact position was not a detail but the whole decision.

The observation index tracked that gradient almost exactly: Leintz-Gatzaga (50.7), Eskoriatza (48.2), Aretxabaleta (46.2), Arrasate/Mondragón (43.5) and Oñati (42.4). Interestingly, the clear-sky statistic runs the other way, though only slightly, from 16.9 % at Leintz-Gatzaga to 19.6 % at Arrasate/Mondragón, with a provincial average of 18.4 %. Because that climatic spread is so narrow, duration decided the ranking outright. These were modest scores next to inland Spain, and that is how the province enters the record.

The Sun stood 8 degrees above the horizon everywhere in the province, with no meaningful variation between towns. In a valley as narrow and steep-sided as the Deba, that altitude was the decisive obstacle: the slopes closing the corridor to the west could hide the Sun before totality even began, so gaining height or finding an open meadow facing west-northwest separated those who saw it from those who did not. The 18.4 % clear-sky figure is a thirty-year average covering 1996 to 2025 and says nothing about that evening's sky. The next one over Spain, on 2 August 2027, reaches only Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla.