Municipalities in Palencia within the path of totality
191 municipalities in Palencia saw the totality of the August 12, 2026 eclipse.
Observation guide
Palencia sat close to the axis of the shadow, and every number reflected it. A hundred and ninety-one municipalities lay inside the path, the provincial capital included, and Bárcena de Campos posted the longest totality at 107 seconds, near enough a minute and three quarters. What mattered was not just the ceiling but the consistency: the best-placed towns all fell between 104 and 106 seconds. There was no need to fine-tune your position to the kilometre to avoid losing totality, which is rarely true near the edges of the path.
The Cerrato district dominated the index, with five entries crammed between 83.8 and 84.3, among the highest scores found anywhere along the path. Antigüedad and Espinosa de Cerrato share the lead on 84.3, both with 105 seconds and a 53.6 % clear-sky rate. Villalaco (84.1) adds a second, at 106, on 52 %. Hornillos de Cerrato (84.0) carries the group's best sky record at 53.9 %, and Cobos de Cerrato closes it out with 106 seconds and 50.8 %. For once, duration and sky pointed to the same place.
Totality arrived with the Sun just 8 to 9 degrees above the horizon. Palencia's open farmland, with its long sightlines and gentle relief, made that easy: moving away from riverside tree cover and buildings was enough to open up the west-northwest, though on the páramos an escarpment in that direction could still spoil it. The 44.2 % provincial average spans 20 % to 55.4 % and summarises thirty summers between 1996 and 2025, not eclipse day itself. The next total eclipse over Spain, 2 August 2027, does not repeat in Castile and León: its path stays in Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla.
Totality lasted much the same wherever you stood in Palencia: only 13 seconds separated the best-placed town from the worst. The list is still split into three bands, worked out from the province's own terciles, because even that narrow margin sorts the territory. Inside each band the towns stay in alphabetical order.
The long third: 1m 46s to 1m 47s
81 of the 191 towns in Palencia, 42% of the provincial total, reached 1m 46s of totality or more. 25 towns shared the longest reading in the band, 1m 47s, among them Bárcena de Campos, Bustillo de la Vega and Fresno del Río. They do not sit in one corner: they spread across much of the territory, with no single part of Palencia monopolising the longest readings.
The middle band: 1m 43s to 1m 45s
Another 59 towns, 31% of the province, landed between 1m 43s and 1m 45s. The ceiling of the band, 1m 45s, was reached by 28 towns at once, 2 seconds short of Bárcena de Campos, which set the provincial maximum. This is the transition band and it behaves like one: it holds no area of its own, it slots in between the other two.
The short third: 1m 34s to 1m 42s
The remaining 51 towns, 27% of the province, fell short of 1m 43s. The tightest of all was Belmonte de Campos at 1m 34s, 13 seconds below Bárcena de Campos. They form no compact block: they trace the perimeter of the area that saw totality at all.