'The World'), before El Mundo del Siglo Veintiuno, is the second largest printed daily newspaper in Spain.

[5] The other founders, Alfonso de Salas, Balbino Fraga and Juan González, shared with Ramírez a background in Grupo 16, the publishers of the newspaper Diario 16.

[14][15] He argued that reporting on corruption scandals involving Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy led to his sacking.

[4][16] Editorially, El Mundo often expresses the mainstream views of the centre-right[14][17] with independent and liberal overtones.

"[19] El Mundo has played a key role in uncovering a number of scandals, among them embezzlement by the commander of the Guardia Civil, accusations of insider trading and tax fraud by the governor of the Central Bank of Spain and aspects of the Bárcenas affair.

[20] Investigative reporting by the staff of El Mundo also revealed connections between the terrorist Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) and the Socialist administration of Felipe González, revelations that contributed to his defeat in the 1996 elections.

In October 2005, El Mundo revealed that Nazi Aribert Heim (aka "Doctor Death") had been living in Spain for 20 years, probably with help from the ODESSA network, in collaboration with Otto Skorzeny, who had helped set up one of the most important ODESSA bases of operation in Spain, during the rule of Francisco Franco.

[27] Based on the findings of the European Business Readership Survey El Mundo had 11,591 readers per issue in 2006.

[24] It was previously in the lead after El País introduced a payment system for access to the contents of its electronic version.