Canary Islands
Capital: Santa Cruz de Tenerife / Las Palmas · North Africa
The Atlantic islands of the Guanches — an Amazigh people who reached the archipelago in antiquity, built cave sanctuaries and mummified their dead, and whose whistled language still carries across the ravines of La Gomera.
The Canary Islands lie roughly 100 km off the northwest African coast and have been Spanish since their conquest between 1402 and 1496. They are an autonomous community of Spain and an outermost region of the European Union. Their indigenous population, the Guanches, were an Amazigh people whose language, burial practices and material culture link the archipelago firmly to the North African mainland.
The Atlas records peoples and heritage and does not adjudicate sovereignty. Where claims are contested, competing positions are set out without endorsement, and inclusion here is not a statement about recognition.
Ethnic communities
- Guanche heritageThe indigenous Amazigh islanders, whose descendants form part of the modern Canarian population
- Canarian islandersThe modern population, blending Guanche, Iberian, Portuguese and later Latin American ties
Languages
Major languages: Spanish, Silbo Gomero (whistled register), Guanche (extinct Amazigh language)
Language families: Indo-European (Romance); Afro-Asiatic (Berber) — historic
Historical kingdoms & states
- • Guanche menceyatos of Tenerife
- • Guanartemates of Gran Canaria
Heritage sites
- • Cueva Pintada de Gáldar (painted cave)
- • Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains of Gran Canaria (UNESCO)
- • Guanche mummies and burial caves
- • Rock engravings and almogaren sanctuaries