The General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) is a general planning instrument defined in the urban planning regulations of Spain as a basic instrument of comprehensive planning of the territory of one or several municipalities, through which the land is classified), the regime applicable to each type of land is determined, and the fundamental elements of the equipment system of the municipality in question are defined.

The General Urban Planning Plan is a municipal document that includes Spanish urban planning regulations, building regulations and future actions, among others. Currently, and after the Ruling of the Constitutional Court 61/1997, of March 20, urban planning powers are attributed exclusively to the autonomous communities, so it will be necessary to abide by the provisions of their specific regulations, regarding the scope and content of this general planning instrument.

As a starting point we have the General Planning Plan of Madrid (1946) "General Planning Plan of Madrid (1946)") in whose legal text of approval appears for the first time to be a configuration of the way in which, ten years later, the characteristics of both the General Plans and the Partial Plans will be defined in the Land Law of 1956.[1]​ This norm, now repealed, established the following urban land classification:

With the new State Land Law (Royal Legislative Decree 7/2015), non-developable (or rural) land once again has residual consideration, with regional regulations generally providing for the following classification: urban land (divided into consolidated and unconsolidated); developable land (in turn generally classified as delimited and undelimited, or sectored and non-sectored); and non-developable land, in its different protection categories (generic, infrastructure, coastal, special protection, etc.). It must be taken into account that by ruling of the Supreme Court of 1992, urban planning and territorial planning is a power conferred on the autonomous communities, which are the ones who legislate land classifications.

This division only refers to land valuation purposes, since state law protects the equality of every citizen before the law.

Since the Supreme Court's ruling in 1997, it was recognized that each autonomous community had discretion in matters of urban planning legislation, which is why different legislations were developed, giving rise to various changes in the general plans. So:.