Lanzarote History
Take a cheap flight to Lanzarote with Jet2.com and discover this beautiful Canary Island, rich in history and culture. Lanzarote was most likely the first of the Canary Islands to be settled and was done so by the Phoenicians in around 1100BC. The islands ancient inhabitants are known generally as Guanches and were an aboriginal society divided into three levels: the royal family, the noblemen and the people.
The island’s name is widely believed to have originated from the name of a Genoese sailor – Lancelotto– who found the island in 1312 and made Europe aware of this beautiful island. Lancelotto provides one of the first written recordings of the island and named it after himself; Lanzarote is the direct translation of Lancolot (Lancelotto) into Spanish.
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Lanzarote was ruled by King Zonzamas at the time of Lancelotto’s arrival and it was Zonzamas’s grandson who was in power when Spanish colonisers arrived on Lanzarote’s shores in 1402, led by Juan De Bethencourt. Bethencourt was eventually succeeded by his nephew Maciot, who was suspected of trying to sell the Canary Islands to the Portuguese. He was made to sign an agreement abdicating his rights over Lanzarote and the rest of the Canary Islands as a result. The following decades saw Lanzarote under the rule of the houses of Diego de Herrera, Ines Peraza and their descendants. Agustin de Herrara y Rojas was made the first Count of Lanzarote in the 16th century. He and his successors ruled Lanzarote as a feudal society until 1812.
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From 1730-1736 a series of volcanic eruptions had a devastating effect on Lanzarote. The eruptions created 32 new volcanoes in an 18km stretch of the island. The volcanic lava covered over a quarter of the island’s surface including fertile soil and eleven villages. You can see the site of the volcanoes when you visit Lanzarote, which today is the setting for Timanfaya National Park. This devastating period was followed by another damaging natural disaster in the shape of a drought in 1768. These events meant that much of Lanzarote’s population emigrated; mainly to Cuba and the Americas.
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In 1927, along with the island of Fuerteventura, Lanzarote became part of the province of Las Palmas. Today, tourism underpins Lanzarote’s flourishing ecnomoy, as well as agriculture. The island’s main airport – Arrecife Airport – receives around 5.5 million passengers and holidaymakers every year.
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