It is part of the rim of streets rounding up the city historical centre, following the layout of the Walls of Philip IV.

Starting in the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V and ending in the Ronda de Valencia [es],[1] the ronda de Atocha conforms a stretch of the southern limits of the Centro district.

[2] The Ronda occupies part of the layout of the ancient Walls of Philip IV.

After 1968, the thoroughfare featured one of the three overpasses of so-called "scalextric" of Atocha, that infamously became one of the largest hotspots of air pollution in the entire city.

[7][8] On 25 January 1980, during the municipal government of Enrique Tierno Galván,[n. 1] the City Council voted in favour of returning the name of the thoroughfare back to "Ronda de Atocha" along a wider change of another 26 street names connected to the Francoist dictatorship or the Civil War.