30 May: Canary Islands Day

30 May is Canary Islands Day, the anniversary of the first session of the Parliament of the Canary Islands. 10 things you might not know about the Canaries:

1. They may be a region belonging to Spain, but they're actually much closer to Africa. They are just 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the African continent, but they are 1,700 kilometres (1,056 miles) from the Spanish mainland. The islands are located in the Atlantic Ocean in an area called Macaronesia.
2. They are volcanic islands, formed by volcanic eruptions. Some of the islands still have volcanoes today. The most recent volcanic eruption was Tenerife’s Mount Teide in 1909. Mount Teide is the highest point in all the Spanish territories, including the Pyrenees, and is the third highest volcano in the world after Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii. In Lanzarote, there's a restaurant called El Diablo which uses a hole dug over a volcano to cook food. The grill's temperature reaches 400°C and uses no energy.
3. The canary bird was named after the islands, not the other way round. The birds originate in Macronesia. The islands were named for a different type of creature – Dogs. The Latin word for dog is canaria. No-one knows for sure why this was. Pliny the elder noted that Gran Canaria contained "vast multitudes of dogs of very large size". That's one theory. Another is that the islands were home to large numbers of Seals, also known as "sea dogs". Or it might be because the first human inhabitants, the Guanches, used to worship dogs.
4. Before any humans arrived at all, the islands were inhabited by giant lizards, Rats and tortoises. The Guanches arrived from North Africa at some point. Modern scientists have concluded that they were related to Berbers. It is believed they arrived on the archipelago in the first millennium BC. The name of these people derives from guanchinet, which literally translated means "person of Tenerife".
5. The archipelago includes eight main islands: Tenerife (Capital: Santa Cruz de Tenerife), Fuerteventura (Capital: Puerto del Rosario), Gran Canaria (Capital: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), Lanzarote (Capital Arrecife), La Palma (Capital: Santa Cruz de La Palma), La Gomera (Capital: San Sebastián), El Hierro (Capital: Valverde) and La Graciosa (Capital: Caleta de Sebo); plus many smaller islands, islets, and rocks. Tenerife is the largest, but even so you can drive around it in about three hours. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria share the status as capital of the archipelago. This means the President of the Canaries has to move from one to the other every four years.
6. The canary bird is the official symbol of the islands along with the Phoenix canariensis palm. Each of the main islands has its own official symbols in addition. These are: El Hierro: El Hierro giant lizard and Juniperus phoenicea (Sabina); La Gomera: Paloma rabiche and Viñátigo; La Palma Graja and Canary Island pine; Tenerife: Tenerife blue chaffinch and Dracaena draco (Drago); Gran Canaria: Canary Mastiff and Euphorbia canariensis (Cardón); Fuerteventura: Canarian houbara and Cardón de Jandía; and Lanzarote: Blind Crab and Tabaiba dulce. The Arrorró or Himno de las Canarias by Teobaldo Power has been the official anthem of the Canary Islands since 2003.
7. The islands have some unique sports, including Canarian wrestling, in which opponents stand in an arena called a terrero and try to throw each other to the ground using strength and quick movements. The game of the sticks is another, a type of fencing using sticks. This probably originated when shepherds in olden times used to challenge each other with their walking sticks. Another is the shepherd's jump, which is a kid of pole vault over an open area. This was probably a skill shepherds developed to get around in the hills.
8. The islands also have their own whistling language. Or La Gomera does, at any rate. It's called ‘Silbo Gomero’ and is a whistling form of Castilian Spanish, used to convey announcements and news across the valleys.
9. It was at the battle for Santa Cruz in Tenerife that Nelson lost his arm in 1797.
10. The dramatic landscapes of the islands have made them sought after locations for films. Films made there include One Million Years BC, The Land That Time Forgot, Clash of the Titans, Fast & Furious 6 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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