A collection of 112 accessions of common beans from the north of Spain has been evaluated for 24 characters during 2 years. A combination of cluster plus canonical discriminant analysis using morphological traits to generate canonical functions was able to separate landraces from different geographic areas of northern Spain, assigning them to germplasm groups related to their centres of origin. The accessions were clustered in three groups in both years. Two groups were related to races with South American origins (races ‘Chile’, ‘Peru’ and ‘Nueva Granada’), the other group was related to races with Mesoamerican origins (races ‘Mesoamerica’ and ‘Durango’). The variation found was higher in the west of the geographic area studied decreasing toward the east. These results will permit a more efficient management and conservation of these resources, and their efficient use in breeding programmes.