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Wednesday 16 December 2015

Lanzarote

Lanzarote is one of the two islands in the east of the Canary Islands. Covering 327 square miles (845.9 square kilometers), it is located approximately 78 miles (125 km) off the coast of West Africa and 7 miles (11 km) north of the neighboring island Fuerteventura.

The island was created from the solidified lava streams and rock formations of a volcanic blast.


The first known record of the island came from Pliny the Elder in the encyclopedia Naturalis Historia about an expedition to the Canary Islands. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are mentioned as the archipelago of the "purple islands.”

The Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello is credited with the rediscovery of the Canary Islands in 1312.

The first recorded name for the island, given by Angelino Dulcert, was Insula de Lanzarotus Marocelus, afte Lancelotto Malocello, from which the modern name is derived.

About 130,000 people live on Lanzarote. The majority of the inhabitants (73.9%) are Spanish, with a sizable number of residents from other European nations.

Tourism has been the mainstay of the island's economy since the mid 1970s, the only other industry being agriculture.



The sun shines for ten hours a day in summer, while in winter temperatures rarely fall below a balmy 21C (70f).

Tourist beaches have golden sand shipped in from the Sahara – but others retain their volcanic sand which is naturally black.


The outdoor scenes of the 1966 caveman film One Million Years BC, starring Raquel Welch in a fur bikini were shot at Lanzarote.

One of the island's lagoons, formed during a volcanic eruption, is home to a unique species of blind albino crab.

Source Daily Mail

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