Lanzarote
Satellite Lanzarote Chinijo2.jpg
Elevation:	Famara (671 m)
Latitude:	29° N
Longitude:	13.667° W (13°40' W)
Location:	northeastern and eastern Canary Islands, Spain
Area:	845.9 km²
Last eruption	1824
Type	Fissure vents

'Lanzarote', a Spanish island, is the easternmost of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 125 km off the coast of Africa and 1,000 km from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering 845.9 km², it stands as the fourth largest of the islands. The first recorded name for the island, given by Angelino Dulcert, was 'Insula de Lanzarotus Marocelus', after the Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, from which the modern name is derived. The island's name in the native Guanche language was 'Tite-Roy-Gatra', which may mean "the red mountains".

Contents

Geography

Geology

Demographics

Climate

Flora and fauna

History

Notables

See also

References

External links

Geography

Lanzarote is situated at 29°00' north, 13°40' west. It is located 11 kilometers north-east of Fuerteventura and only 1 km from Graciosa. The elongated island has an area of 845,9 km². The dimensions of the island are 60 km from north to south and 25 km from west to east. Lanzarote has 213 km of coastline, of which 10 km are sand, 16.5 km are beach, and the remainder are rocky. Its dramatic landscape includes the mountain ranges of Famara (671 m) in the north and Ajaches (608 m) to the south. South of the Famara massif is the El Jable desert which separates Famara and Montañas del Fuego.

Lanzarote's mountains include the Montañas del Fuego located in the Timanfaya National Park. The tallest mountain is Peñas del Chache elevating 670 m above sea level. The "Tunnel of Atlantis" is the largest submerged volcanic tunnel in the world. The island is under protection as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.

Geology

Lanzarote is of volcanic origin. The island was created about 35 million years ago. Alfred Wegener arrived in 1912 and studied the island and showed how it fitted in with his theory of continental drift. The island along with others was created after the breakup of the African and the American continental plates.

Demographics

As of 2003, a total of 114,715 people lived on Lanzarote; the population has since risen to about 125,000. The seat of the island government (''Cabildo Insular'') is in Arrecife, which has a population of 47,100 (2004). The flag is red and blue split diagonally from top-left to bottom-right. Lanzarote is an extremely diverse island, with the largest ethnic group being Spanish; there are also sizeable African, Chinese, South Asian and European populations (most notably British and Germans).
The island has its own international airport, Arrecife Airport, through which some 5.5 million passengers travel every year. Tourism has been the mainstay of the island's economy for the past forty years. The only other industry is agriculture.
Lanzarote is part of the province of Las Palmas, and is divided into seven municipalities:

★ Arrecife

★ Haría

★ San Bartolomé

★ Teguise (includes Isla de La Graciosa and four smaller islets)

★ Tías

★ Tinajo

★ Yaiza

Climate

Lanzarote's climate ranges from mild to hot during the year. Temperatures in the summer are between 30 °C and 45 °C during the day and about 20 °C at night. Its winter daytime temperature is between 20 °C and 25 °C and the nighttime temperature is between 13 °C and 16 °C. Lanzarote is surrounded with trade winds. The water temperature at the Atlantic is at 22 °C during the summer and 17 °C during the winter months. Precipitation is between 135 and 250 mm. The heaviest is between December and January. Lanzarote is the driest island in the Canary Islands. Most of the precipitation occurs in the area around Famara Massif while the south is mainly dry. Every year sandstorms generated in the Sahara desert strike Lanzarote. During such storms the temperature can rise to over 40 °C and visibility can drop to only 100 m. The wind which brings these storms is called the Calima by the islanders.

Flora and fauna

There are five hundred different kinds of plants on the island, of which 17 are endemic and 180 are lichen. Lichens survive in the suitable areas like the rock and introduce its own weathering. These plants have adapted to the relative scarcity of water, the same as succulents. Plants includes date palms ''Phoenix canariensis'' which are founded in damper areas of the north, ''Pinus canariensis'', ferns, wild olive trees (''Olea europaea''). The ''laurisilva'' trees which once covered the highest parts of Risco de Famara are rarely found today. After the winter rainfalls, the vegetation comes to a colorful bloom between February and March.
The fauna of Lanzarote is more monotonous than the plant life, except for bats and other types of mammals which accompanied humans to the island, including the dromedary which was used for agriculture and is now a tourist attraction. Lanzarote has thirty-five types of animal life, including birds, falcons, and reptiles. Some interesting endemic creatures are the ''Gallotia'' lizards, and the blind deep-water ''Remipedia'' crabs found in the Jameos del Agua lagoon, which was created by a volcanic eruption.
The vineyards of La Gería, with their traditional methods of cultivation, are a protected area. Single vines are planted in pits 4-5m wide and 2-3m deep, with small stone walls around each pit. This agricultural technique is designed to harvest rainfall and overnight dew and to protect the plants from the winds. The vineyards are part of the World Heritage Site as well as other sites on the island.

History

Lanzarote was probably the first Canary Island to be settled. The Phoenicians settled there around 1100 BC. The Greek writers and philosophers Herodotus, Plato and Plutarch described the garden of Hesperis, the land of fertility where fruits and flowers smell in the part of the Atlantic. The first known record came from Pliny the Elder in the encyclopedia ''Naturalis Historia'' on an expedition to the Canary Islands. The names of the islands (then called ''Insulae Fortunatae'') were recorded as ''Canaria'' (Gran Canaria), ''Ninguaria'' (Tenerife), ''Junonia Mayor'' (La Palma) and ''Capraria'' (El Hierro). Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were only mentioned as an archipelago.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Canary islands became abandoned until 999 AD when the Arabs arrived at the island and was known as ''al-Djezir al-Khalida'' and other names. In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of ''Lanzarote da Framqua'', alias Lancelotto Malocello. A fort was later built in the area of Montaña de Guanapay near today's Teguise. Jean de Béthencourt arrived in 1402 on a private expedition to the Canary Islands and brought slavery to the island as well as raw materials. Bethencourt first visited the south of Lanzarote at Playas de Papagayo. In 1404, the Spaniards with the support of the King of Spain came and fought against a rebellion among the local Guanches. The islands of Fuerteventura and El Hierro were later conquered. In the 17th century, pirates raided the island and took 1,000 inhabitants to slavery in Cueva de los Verdes.
From 1730 to 1736 (for 2,053 days), the island was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, creating 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 km. The minister of Yaiza Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo documented the eruption in detail until 1731. Lava covered a quarter of the island's surface, including the most fertile soil and eleven villages. One hundred smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas del Fuego. In 1768, drought affected the island and winter rains did not fall. Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas. Another volcanic eruption occurred within the range of Tiagua in 1824 which was not as bad as the major eruption between 1730 and 1736.
In 1927, Lanzarote as well as Fuerteventura became part of the province of Las Palmas.

Notables

Among the notables who have lived on the island are César Manrique, an artist; José Saramago, a Portuguese Nobel Prize for Literature winner, and Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark and her husband, Carlos Morales Quintana.

See also

★ El Golfo crater

★ Timanfaya, a volcanic nature reserve.

★ Salinas del Janubio

★ Jameos del Agua

★ Los Hervideros

★ Mirador del Rio

★ Cueva de los Verdes

★ Puerto del Carmen

★ ''Jardín de Cactus'', a cactus garden in Guatiza.

★ Guatiza

References

★ Pott, Joachim/Hüppe, Joachim/de la Torre, Wofredo Wildpret ''Die Kanarischen Inseln. Natur- und Kulturlandschaften'' = ''The Canary Islands. Natural and Cultural Landscapes'', Ulmer : Stuttgart 2003, 320 S., 295 color photos, 28 colored graphica, 3 tables. (represented and illustrated by Geobotanik). ISBN 3-8001-3284-2.

External links

★

★ Tourism Official Web

★ Cabildo de Lanzarote

★ Web de Lanzarote

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