Abstract. – The adaptability of badgers to diverse environments under conditions of variable food availability (amount and variety) together with their social organization patterns have allowed them to inhabit a vast geographical range across Europe. Consequently, badger habitat selection has been addressed throughout most of its distribution range in terms of both individual ranges and sett locations. Several versions of the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis have been proposed to explain habitat selection by badgers. Here we performed a compositional analysis to evaluate the habitat preferences of badgers in the NE Iberian Peninsula. For this purpose, we used data from the radio-tracking of 13 adult individuals in two Natural Parks near Barcelona (at home range and core foraging area scale), and also the location data of 39 setts in one of these parks. At the home range level, badgers selected mainly riparian vegetation habitats and avoided residential areas. Similar results were also obtained from the sett environment analysis. However, badgers chose crop fields for core foraging areas. In accordance with previous findings, our results show that badgers in Mediterranean environments choose habitats on the basis of the capacity of these to provide protective shelter rather than on food availability where food is not a critical, limiting resource in the badger environment. We conclude that the same habitat characteristics are chosen for both sett sites and home ranges while agricultural patches define core foraging areas. These results are in accordance with the Sett Dispersion Hypothesis.