Plaza de Cascorro, Public square in Lavapiés, Madrid, Spain

Plaza de Cascorro is a public square in the Lavapiés area of Madrid, where nine streets meet at the top of the Rastro market. The ground is covered with large light-grey stone slabs, and in the middle stands a dark fountain basin with a sculpted centrepiece, surrounded by bare trees set into circular paved surrounds.

The square took its current name in 1941, after the siege of Cascorro during the Cuban War of Independence. Before that, it was known as Plaza del Duque de Alba and later as Plaza de Nicolás Salmerón, and it was enlarged when a block of buildings was torn down.

The square sits at the top of the Rastro, Madrid's famous open-air market, and on Sundays it fills with people browsing the stalls that spread into the nearby streets. The name comes from a battle in Cuba, and the monument in the centre shows a soldier, a figure that locals often call by the name of the square itself.

The square is open to everyone and easy to reach on foot from the nearby streets of Lavapiés and Embajadores. It is a good place to start or end a walk through the Rastro market, and you can use it as a meeting point because it is easy to find.

The painter Francisco de Goya used this square and its surrounding streets as a setting for some of his early cartoons, such as El ciego de la guitarra and La cometa. The monument in the centre was unveiled in 1902 and shows the soldier Eloy Gonzalo holding a can of petrol and with a rope around his torso.