About Fuerteventura

With 3000 hours of sunshine a year, the island of Fuerteventura is located just 100km from Cape Juby in Morroco on the North African Coast. It is the second largest (after Tenerife) of all the Canary Islands at 1.658m2, it is 98km long, with 30km at its widest point and only 5km at its narrowest point. It is the oldest of the Canary Islands dating back 20 million years to a volcanic eruption. The last known activity was between 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

It forms part of an alignment of over 200 km that begins in the isle of Alegranza, to the north of Lanzarote and extends to within almost 20 km south of Jandia Point, making up the largest continental platform in the Canary Islands.

The island is made up of six municipalities, La Oliva, Puerto del Rosario, Betancuria, Antigua, Tuineje and Pajara. Los Lobos island located just off Corralejo belongs to La Oliva.

An island of extensive plains, practically unique in the archipelago, its central axis is formed by a longitudinal plateau, as opposed to that which occurs in the rest of the islands, in which the central axes are generally the highest altitudes. Fuerteventura’s land surface is one of advanced maturity and although the island suffered numerous volcanic eruptions throughout its geological history, these have been insufficient to compensate erosion and significantly rejuvenate the terrain.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the island was invaded and colonised by Juan de Bethencourt and Gadifer de la Salle, after which, the conquerors took over the existing kingdoms of Maxorata and Jandia, their kings, Guize and Ayose, adopting the names of Luis and Alfonso, respectively. They established themselves in what is today Betancuria Valley, where the Franciscans also founded the Monastery of San Buenaventura. The island remained a feudal territory from the 15th to the 19th century, when it became part of the Spanish province of the Canary Islands.

Playa de Garcey © Picture A. Collinson

Small villages dotted along the coastline, more abundant on the eastern coast, and located mainly at the entrance to ravines, combined farming the land with fishing activities, although the latter never achieved great entity. Only Corralejo, and to a lesser degree Morro Jable, with abundant fishing resources very close at hand, can be strictly said to have a seafaring tradition.

In opposition to this traditional model of territorial occupation, the tourist boom at the beginning of the seventies brought with it a new regime of demographic distribution in which the coastal areas were favoured, whilst the inland areas of the island were almost completely ignored.

A series of tourist populations sprang up along the coast, some of them supported by pre-existing villages, such as Corralejo, Morro Jable or Tarajalejo, although most were created “from scratch”.

As a result of this process, many of Fuerteventura’s inland villages based on traditional activities, began clearly to fall into decline, whilst other populated areas, supported to a great extent by tourism, attracted people from the interior.