Ask how many peñas there are in Pamplona and you’ll get one of two answers: sixteen, if the source is counting members of the Federación de Peñas de Pamplona, or seventeen, if it also counts Peña Mutilzarra, which sits outside the Federación by its own bylaws. Both answers are defensible. Neither is complete. Pamplona’s own city hall, in the practical-information list it publishes on its city-run tourism page, names eighteen peñas, not seventeen. The extra name is La Escalerica de San Fermín, a club barely three years old that still has no clubhouse of its own and that almost nothing written in English has ever mentioned.
This matters for more than trivia. A visitor, a journalist, or a researcher who wants an accurate list of Pamplona’s peñas and stops at the first “definitive” number they find will miss an entire club, and will very likely repeat the same errors that turn up even in aggregated search summaries: an outdated name for a peña that renamed itself thirty years ago, a missing founder, a count that quietly drops the newest member of the group entirely. Getting the roster right is the difference between describing Pamplona’s peña culture accurately and repeating a number that was already out of date the last time it circulated.
This account draws directly on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own published peña list and press materials, cross-checked against the Federación de Peñas de Pamplona’s documented membership, Spanish Wikipedia’s peña history (verified against primary sources, never used alone), Navarra press coverage of the newest peña’s founding, and Encierro’s own previously published, independently sourced histories of seven individual peñas, several of which corrected founding dates that had gone unquestioned for decades.
The Actual Count Is 18, Not 16 or 17
The Federación de Peñas de Pamplona, established in 1998 to continue coordination work a predecessor body had done since 1959, currently counts sixteen member clubs. Add Peña Mutilzarra, founded in 1992 and confirmed by its own bylaws as the one peña that has never joined the Federación, and the widely repeated total becomes seventeen. That is the number nearly every English-language source, including our own most recent overview of Pamplona’s peña culture, converges on.
Pamplona’s city hall publishes a different number. Its own tourism page, under “Practical Information,” lists eighteen peña names, the sixteen Federación members, Mutilzarra, and one more: La Escalerica de San Fermín. The city itself treated the club as established enough to host a press conference presenting its own festival program at the Ayuntamiento in February 2025. A search-engine summary of the top external sources on this exact question, run as part of this article’s research, still returned only sixteen names and dropped both Mutilzarra and El Charco from the list entirely, while giving the renamed Sanduzelai peña its outdated former name, San Jorge. If a machine-generated synthesis of the internet’s own best sources gets the count wrong in three different ways at once, “seventeen” was never a safe number to repeat without checking.
The Complete Roster: Founding Year, Colors, and Clubhouse
The table below lists all eighteen names that currently appear across the Ayuntamiento’s published peña page and the Federación’s own membership, organized by founding period. Several founding years carry a note because the club’s own later research revealed an earlier or more complicated origin than the flat date on file.
| Peña | Founded | Colors / Blusón | Clubhouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Única | Long dated 1903; a 2025 archival study by the peña’s own members with the Universidad Pública de Navarra puts the real founding at 1930-1933 | Green pañuelo, faja, and alpargata ties; blue-and-white check blusón | Casco Viejo, relocated several times over its history |
| Muthiko Alaiak | 1931 | Small blue check blusón | Calle Estafeta |
| El Bullicio Pamplonés | 1933 | White, no blusón; shield on the pañuelo | Calle del Carmen |
| La Jarana | Registered 1940, though the government’s own 1940 permit authorized the peña to “resume,” not begin, its activities | Blue pañuelo and faja; blue-check blusón | Calle Jarauta, in a clubhouse with a protected 14th-century crypt |
| Oberena | Sports club 1940; peña section organized January 1941 | Green, white, and black | Calle Jarauta |
| Aldapa | Sports club 1947; became a fiesta peña in 1958 | No blusón; shield on the pañuelo | Calle Jarauta, approximately 275 members |
| Anaitasuna | Formed 1948 by footballers of a two-year-old sports club; welcomed by the other peñas in June 1949 | Red pañuelo bearing an image of San Fermín | Casco Viejo |
| Los del Bronce | 1950 | White-and-blue check blusón | Calle Jarauta |
| Irrintzi | Football club 1930; recognized as a fiesta peña in 1951 | Black blusón | Calle del Carmen |
| Alegría de Iruña | Merged 1952 from two earlier groups; took its current name in 1969 | Green blusón with red trim; red pañuelo edged in green | Calle Jarauta |
| Armonía Txantreana | 1956 | Plain white, no blusón | Txantrea neighborhood |
| Donibane (San Juan) | 1977, took the Basque name Donibane in 1985 | Light blue blusón; blue pañuelo with shield | Avenida de Barañáin, the largest peña by membership |
| La Rotxa (Rotxapea) | 1979 | Not independently documented | Rochapea neighborhood, approximately 200 members |
| 7 de Julio San Fermín | Roots in the 1930s; refounded 1978-79 | Black-and-white check blusón | Milagrosa neighborhood |
| Sanduzelai (formerly San Jorge) | 1979-80; renamed 1996 | White-and-black check blusón | San Jorge neighborhood |
| El Charco | Founded December 2018; first appeared as a peña July 2020 | Blue-and-white stripe blusón; blue pañuelo and faja | Calle Jarauta, roots in the neighboring municipality of Ansoáin |
| Peña Mutilzarra | 1992 | Red blusón; red pañuelo with shield | Casco Viejo. Not a Federación member |
| La Escalerica de San Fermín | Approximately 2022 | Not yet documented | No clubhouse. Meets informally at a bar on Calle García Castañón |
The Peña Almost Nobody Has Written About
La Escalerica de San Fermín is the newest name on the city’s own list, and it barely resembles the century-old clubs above it. Navarra press coverage from June 2025 put the club at three years old, meaning it was organized around 2022, with roughly sixty members, most of them from Pamplona and a handful from neighboring Gipuzkoa. It has no clubhouse and, by its own members’ account, no immediate plan to buy one. A considerable outlay, one officer told the Navarra press, is a clear goal but not yet an affordable one. In the meantime, the club’s informal gathering point is a bar on Calle García Castañón.
What the club does have is a fully registered structure: an elected board, a public annual program, and its own contracted txaranga, a Segovia-based band called Los Pirris. Its founders describe the group’s purpose in terms that sound almost defensive against the idea that a peña exists to raise money or compete with older clubs: the goal, in the words of one founding member, is to grow as a group of people, not to fundraise. Several of its organizers point to an age gap the city’s other clubs left unfilled, describing themselves as representing Pamplona residents in their forties and older, including parents who bring their own children to the fiesta. The club’s name nods to “la escalerica,” the traditional monthly countdown to July 7 built around the song “Uno de enero,” and its members mark the first of each month with a shared meal in that tradition’s spirit.
Pamplona’s city hall clearly recognizes the club, having hosted a February 2025 press conference to present its own festival programming. Some Navarra press coverage describes La Escalerica de San Fermín as the most recent addition to the city’s peña family, joining the ranks immediately after Mutilzarra. Whether that specifically means Federación membership is not independently confirmed, and given that Mutilzarra’s own bylaws and public record establish it as the one peña that has never joined the Federación, that detail should be read with caution rather than repeated as settled fact. What is settled is simpler and, on its own, still enough to correct the record: the Ayuntamiento’s own published peña list has eighteen names on it, and this is the eighteenth.
Why the Founding Dates on This List Deserve a Second Look
Several of the founding years listed above carry more nuance than a flat date suggests, and readers who want the fuller story on any single club should not stop at the roster. La Única’s case is the clearest example: for over a century, 1903 was treated as settled fact, solid enough that the peña held a major centenary celebration in 2004, until a decade of archival research by the peña’s own members, published in February 2025, moved the real founding to sometime between 1930 and 1933. Peña Irrintzi carries a similar note. Its own institutional history traces the club to a 1930 football team, which means the peña marked its 75th anniversary in 2026 while the organization behind it is closer to 96 years old. Peña La Jarana’s 1940 registration is not in dispute, but the government permit that authorized it used the Spanish word for “resume” rather than “found,” a detail that points to a club rebuilding after the Spanish Civil War rather than starting from nothing. Peña Aldapa’s 1958 peña founding likewise sits on top of an eleven-year run as a plain sports club that most short accounts skip entirely.
None of this makes the roster above less accurate. It means the roster is a starting point, not the whole story, and readers who want the fuller history of La Única, Irrintzi, La Jarana, Aldapa, Anaitasuna, Muthiko Alaiak, or Armonía Txantreana specifically will find each one covered in its own dedicated piece elsewhere on this site.
Knowing the roster is one thing. Knowing what a visitor can actually do with any of these eighteen clubs, short of joining one, is another, and that boundary is worth mapping on its own.
\n\n
Frequently Asked Questions
How many peñas are there in Pamplona?
It depends what is being counted. The Federación de Peñas de Pamplona has sixteen member clubs. Add Peña Mutilzarra, which is not a Federación member, and the total most sources cite is seventeen. Pamplona’s own city hall lists eighteen names on its published peña page, adding a barely documented, roughly three-year-old club called La Escalerica de San Fermín.
What is the newest peña in Pamplona?
Based on the Ayuntamiento’s own current peña list, the newest name is La Escalerica de San Fermín, organized around 2022. Among established Federación members, El Charco is the most recently founded, organized in December 2018 in the neighboring municipality of Ansoáin and first appearing as a peña in July 2020.
Which Pamplona peña is not part of the Federación de Peñas?
Peña Mutilzarra, founded in 1992, is confirmed by its own bylaws as the one peña of San Fermín that has never belonged to the Federación de Peñas de Pamplona. It organizes the independent, popular version of the Riau-Riau procession on its own each year.
What is the oldest peña in Pamplona?
La Única remains the oldest, though not by the date most sources repeat. Its long-cited 1903 founding was revised in a February 2025 archival study by the peña’s own members, working with the Universidad Pública de Navarra, which places the real founding between 1930 and 1933.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.