Leone's Westerns: Tabernas and Cabo de Gata

A Fistful of Dollars was shot mostly near Madrid, yet Leone also shot in the Tabernas Desert and the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, and his two sequels followed. The reason is simple: the desert resembles the American Southwest and northern Mexico, and since the late 1950s more than 300 films, most of them westerns, have been shot here.

Location precision: Leone used several sites; the pin marks the Tabernas Desert in general.

Visitor guidance: The film sets sit a short drive apart around Tabernas; the next stops are among them.

For a Few Dollars More needed a whole town, so designer Carlo Simi built "El Paso" in the desert, first called Yucca City. In the story, the outlaw Indio plans to rob the Bank of El Paso and its disguised safe. The set later served The Good, the Bad and the Ugly too, and still stands as the tourist park Mini Hollywood, which stages a mock bank raid daily.

Visitor guidance: Now a tourist park (Oasys / Mini Hollywood) with daily cowboy stunt shows; check opening times before you go.

After the robbery, Indio and his gang flee to Agua Caliente. In reality it is Los Albaricoques, a white village on the Níjar plain in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park. The finale unfolds in its centre: Colonel Mortimer calls Indio out, giving his own full name, and the two face off while a pocket watch plays its tune until the music ends. Today the village has one shop and two bars.

Visitor guidance: A small working village; park and walk the centre quietly, as people live here.

Once Upon a Time in the West opens with a train arriving at Flagstone, where a man with a harmonica waits for three gunmen. That opening was among the sequences filmed in Spain, at an abandoned "ghost" railway station in La Calahorra, near Guadix in the province of Granada, where the Flagstone scenes were also shot. The station in the story is called Cattle Corner. It lies outside Almería.

Location precision: The pin from a map search marks the station area of La Calahorra; the exact building on screen is not confirmed.

Sweetwater is where Once Upon a Time in the West turns tragic: Frank and his gang murder Brett McBain and his three children as they prepare for a celebration at the ranch. The scenes were filmed in the Tabernas Desert, at what is now called Western Leone, the smallest of the area's three western parks. It was built for this film, and the large red house around which many scenes revolve is kept as an attraction.

Visitor guidance: Western Leone is a theme park; check opening hours and tickets before visiting.