Madrid Madrid Madrid (, ) is the capital of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has almost 3.2 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (EU), smaller than only London and Berlin, and its monocentric metropolitan area is the third-largest in the EU, smaller only than those of London and Paris. The municipality covers . Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid (which comprises the
New Madrid County, Missouri located in the region. This area was under Spanish rule following France's cession of Louisiana after being defeated in the Seven Years' War. The Spanish named the district after Madrid, the capital of Spain. The county includes a large part of the New Madrid Fault that produced the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes. This zone remains geologically active, and had continued to produce smaller earthquakes with some frequency. French Canadians from New France landed in this area in 1781 and established the first European settlement in the present county at New Madrid along the Mississippi River. Later France ceded this area