In this paper I examine the characteristics of metropolitan governance in Spain. In the first part, I briefly analyse the different theoretical conceptions and the existing models of metropolitan governance in Europe. I argue that metropolitan governance is explained by the interrelations between the specific institutional context (intergovernmental system) and political culture (attitudes towards metropolitan cooperation). This institutional milieu sets the conditions for the action of political actors and favours the existence of a specific model of metropolitan governance. In the second part, I study the case of Spain, which is interesting for two main reasons. First, it exemplifies well one of the problems of metropolitan governance: the permanent gap between institutions and the process of metropolitanization. Second, in Spain there is a diversity of models of metropolitan governance, which is useful to analyse the reasons for this variation. To do so, I focus on five urban areas (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Sevilla), analysing their models of metropolitan governance and particularly their degree of institutionalization and the type of institutional arrangements that have been made.