It depends which city document you ask: 3,500, 2,186, 1,362, 1,200 or none at all. Four figures and an absence, from a single authority, with none of them explaining another.
202105-0-mercadillos, refreshed dailyChecked on August 23, 2026| Source | Figure | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 Rastro ordinance, article 20 | 3,500 | A legal ceiling on modules, not a count. Wikipedia quotes it as if it were a census. |
| Stall register, cartography of 2022 | 2,186 | Modules drawn on the plan. It is what this site and its map use. |
| 2025 sector report | 1,362 | Authorized, according to that report. |
Dataset 202105-0-mercadillos, Rastro entry | 1,200 | What the city publishes today, refreshed daily. Checked on August 23, 2026. |
| The 41 annual BOAM listings | none | They give no count for El Rastro, and they do give one for the district's other pitches. It is told in zero vacancies. |
2,186, the modules drawn on the 2022 city cartography, because it is the only figure that comes with positions: it can be put on a plan, split by street, by trade and by sector, and contradicted precisely. None of the other three can be broken down.
A finding lands here when two documents from the same authority say incompatible things. The contradiction is published with its sources and the date it was checked, and nothing more: conclusions the documents do not give are not written.