The Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) is the public administration of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, which occupies 636 km² and encompasses 36 municipalities with more than 3.2 million inhabitants.

The metropolitan area is a territorial, social, demographic, economic and cultural entity formed during the last century as a product of the growth and connection of urban systems around the city of Barcelona. This is the largest metropolitan conurbation in the western Mediterranean, which generates half of the GDP in Catalonia.

The new public metropolitan administration replaces the three entities existing until 2011: Mancomunitat de Municipis de l’Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona  (Union of Municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona), Environmental Agency and Transport Metropolitan Agency. This new AMB rationalises and simplifies the metropolitan governance by creating a single administration.

This new legal framework also reinforced the metropolitan administration with new competencies and objectives:

• The new law provides that the Metropolitan Urban Master Plan is formulated from the new administration, which means supplying it with spatial planning instruments tailored to the common needs and requirements.
• In terms of public space and infrastructures of metropolitan interest, the AMB develops territorial structuring actions necessary for the territory articulation, connectivity, mobility and functionality.
• The metropolitan area has now its own Urban Planning Commission, which will let all urban issues of the 36 urban municipalities comprised in it to be analysed according to a joint planning.
• The metropolitan administration applies measures to facilitate access to housing by promoting affordable housing, as well as measures for the rehabilitation of existing housing.
• There is the will to transform the metropolitan area into an intelligent city, where the use of new technologies can offer more and better services to citizens in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable environment.
• The work of the AMB in  environmental preservation is focused on natural areas, such as Collserola, as well as activities for the recovery and regeneration of Besòs and Llobregat rivers.
• The AMB manages 30 km of metropolitan beaches, from Castelldefels to Montgat, and develops a comprehensive maintenance of a network composed of 51 metropolitan parks.
• The Rondes of Barcelona are a basic element of the metropolitan road network and are going to be managed by the new administration.
• The AMB develops international collaboration projects and provides technical assistance to other Mediterranean cities through the Medcities project.
• It develops and approves the Metropolitan Urban Mobility Plan.
• The new AMB has now powers in surface transport of passengers of the 36 metropolitan municipalities.
• The services managed by the AMB cover the 70% of the metropolitan mobility that occurs in collective transport.
• The metropolitan area of Barcelona is recognised as the most dynamic metropolitan conurbation  of the Euromediterranean area. It shows its commitment to mobilise the skills and knowledge to increase our international presence, strengthen economic activity and attract people and innovative activities.
• The AMB gains  competencies in the area of economic and social development, in order to promote economic activity and strategic planning, and to promote employment and entrepreneurship.

These new competencies and objectives join and increase those aims concerning to cohesion and territorial balance, housing, transports and mobility, water cycle, waste and environment, that the metropolitan entities had already deployed since they were formed in 1987.