The housing developments that started to increase in the 90s have determined the composition of Arboleas population.

On the one hand, these developments –that were public ones at the beginning- made the young people from the town to stay. And on the other hand, young people from neighbouring towns came to Arboleas to work and live.

It was from 1995 when there was the biggest increase of the population due to the private developments, mainly aimed at residencial tourism and occupied basically by British people.

Moreover, because of the increasing number of housing developments, there was not enough work force in Arbeloas to face the demand, so a high number of workers moved to Arboleas, mostly from South America and Eastern Europe.

Arboleas provides then a multicultural environment with more than 20 nationalities detailed in the following table:





United Kingdom


South American


Other nationalities


Because of the financial crisis that started in 2.008, some of the foreigners were forced to leave Arboleas, especially British ones. But this has not really affected to the population evolution since it keeps on growing, although not as fast as it used to do.