Puerta de Palmas, formerly Puerta Nueva, is a monumental gateway in the wall that surrounded Badajoz, located opposite the Puente de Palmas (Bridge of Palms). Its construction was completed in 1551. It is one of the most representative monuments in the city. This monument is one of the few things that remain of a fortified city that needed its walls to defend itself in past centuries. In the 17th century another gate was opened in front of the bridge of the Autonomía, near the Ermita de los Pajaritos and changed its name from Puerta Nueva to Puerta de Palmas. This gate consists of two cylindrical towers flanking a passage arch with a Renaissance design on the outside. The uses of the Puerta de Palmas have changed over time and although it is now mostly a roundabout, it has been used as a watchtower, lodging or even a prison, and for a long time it also served as a fortified access point to the city, and later as a control point for customs and tax purposes.

In 1933 the demolition of some of the parts of the wall that accompanied the Puerta de Palmas was approved to allow for the natural growth of the city of Badajoz, although this demolition only affected the wall between the old bastion of San Juan and the bastion of Santiago. This reform, together with the extension of the Puente de Palmas bridge, made it possible to link the city to the railway station, which had been in operation since 1863. In this way, Puerta de Palmas has remained in the middle of the city, at the head of the Puente de Palmas, which gives it its name, and has definitively lost its military function. Although it is an emblem of the city, it was not until 1948 that it was forbidden to paste posters on the Puerta de Palmas façade.

The Puerta de Palmas, like other similar gates, has not only a defensive and passage-control function but also a symbolic function as triumphal arches in honour of the sovereigns and kings of the time and, following the Renaissance style, imitates the triumphal arches of Roman civilisation. It consists of a memorial arch and two solid cylindrical towers. The exterior façade has a semicircular arch, decorated with a coat of arms of Charles V. On the inner façade is a chapel dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Our Lady of the Angels). The towers served as a royal prison until the end of the 19th century.

It was restored in 1960 by the municipal architect and art critic Francisco Vaca Morales, who commissioned the painter and sculptor Guillermo Silveira to create a sculpture of the Virgin of the Angels plus two lateral bas-reliefs that have occupied the central chapel of the building ever since. It is also known that, according to the initial project, the image was to have a wrought iron crown commissioned from the poet and sculptor Luis Álvarez Lencero, but this work was never carried out due to the limited budget available.

The wall attached to the Gate had a very important character in terms of rivalry with the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal, and although there were some periods of stabilisation of relations between the latter and the Spanish Monarchy, in the 17th century, with the uprising of Portugal and its new independence (1668), numerous military operations were fought in Badajoz. These events led to renewed interest in the construction and renovation of this wall. The new defensive system respected the Puerta de Palmas, leaving it intact, although the floodable moats were removed.