The city of Salamanca has 160,415 residents, which is 45% of the population of the whole province (350,984 residents). To this number we should add the students that arrive every year to the city. They account for a floating population to keep in mind because the universities welcome more than 35,000 students and the Spanish language schools around 20,000 foreigners. The metropolitan area of Salamanca also consists of five municipalities which add 22,627 residents to the population of the city. Therefore we can speak of around 225,000 residents that give life to the city.

Not in vain it offers a number of recently built high quality hotels. The celebration of the European Capital of Culture in 2002 led to the opening of many hotels of 3, 4 and 5 stars and, at the same time, forced those already existing to renovate and improve their facilities. From 2001 to 2003 the number of hotels doubled, and the number of rooms increased greatly. At the moment, Salamanca city has 4,717 hotel beds distributed among 2,569 rooms (2 hotels of 5 stars, 17 hotels of 4 stars, 10 hotels of 3 stars, 16 hotels of 2 stars, 6 hotels of 1 star).

A large part of the life of the city revolves around the University, its students and those things that confer a cosmopolitan and contemporary atmosphere to the city. This atmosphere is influenced by the foreigners who arrive from different parts of the world to study Spanish; the relationship of the city with America ; and the continual heartbeat of the city - 24 hours of life and movement. In Salamanca there are two universities: the public one or University of Salamanca with 30,446 students, and the private one or Catholic University of Salamanca , with 4,251 students. (Data 2004).

The religious institutions that are still conserved today also confer a unique characteristic to the city, especially from the light that is reflexed off the Villamayor stone which covers most of the buildings. It gives them a special golden touch that distinguishes them from the rest. Salamanca is blue and green and, overall, golden.