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
Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway by residents and landowners since its inception. After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the engineering policy on the Mississippi River changed from building levees high enough to withstand the greatest recorded flood to include floodways. The Flood Control Act of 1928 authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to construct the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri and the Morganza Spillway and Bonnet Carre Spillway in Louisiana. Even before its authorization, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway was the subject of controversy. In June 1927, President Calvin Coolidge instructed the Mississippi River Commission and the Corps of Engineers to