The park is located at the edge of the city centre, near both the Puerta de Alcalá and the Museo del Prado, and covers 1.4 km2 (350 acres).

In 2021, Buen Retiro Park became part of a combined UNESCO World Heritage Site that also includes Paseo del Prado.

[1] In 1505, the Jeronimites monastery was moved to a new Isabelline Gothic-style building at the present-day site of the Church of Saint Jerome the Royal.

Philip had the Retiro enlarged under the direction of his architect Juan Bautista de Toledo, who also formally laid out tree-lined avenues.

The gardens were extended in the 1620s, when Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, gave the king several tracts of adjacent land for the court's recreational use.

Olivares, with the king's permission, drew up plans for a royal residence far more grand than the existing villas, which had been built for Roman nobles.

Most of the palace and its gardens were destroyed during the Peninsular War (1807–1814) when the troops of the First French Empire built the Citadel of Madrid on park grounds.

[4] At the beginning of the 20th century, the Monument to Alfonso XII of Spain, designed by José Grases Riera, was built next to the pond.

Nearby is the monument to King Alfonso XII, featuring a semicircular colonnade and an equestrian statue of the monarch on top of a tall central core.

Built along with its artificial pond in 1887 for the Philippine Islands Exhibitions, the Palacio de Cristal was first used to display flower species indigenous to the archipelago.

Also in the Retiro Park is the Forest of Remembrance (Bosque del recuerdo), a memorial monument to commemorate the 191 victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

The youth area includes bars for triceps dips, pull-ups, and sit-ups, as well as large stones that locals have brought to use as weights.