Which Spanish city square is famous for eating 12 grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve?

Madrid’s Puerta del Sol is the Spanish square famous for eating 12 grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

At midnight, people try to eat one grape with each stroke of the clock at Puerta del Sol. The 12 grapes represent the 12 months of the coming year, and successfully keeping pace is popularly associated with good fortune. Television broadcasts from the square have made the clock and countdown familiar throughout Spain and among Spanish-speaking communities abroad.

The square’s clock tower, installed in the nineteenth century, is the focus of the national countdown. Many households watch the televised chimes while preparing grapes in advance, since eating all 12 quickly can be surprisingly difficult.

The custom is often linked to a surplus grape harvest in the early twentieth century, particularly a 1909 promotional effort by grape growers. The tradition is not simply “Spanish New Year’s food”: the distinctive public ritual is tied to the clock chimes and the twelve-grape sequence.