Canaries

CANARIES. - Archipelago of 14 islands (of which 7 are major), of volcanic origin, located in the North Atlantic to the SW. of the Moroccan coast. It measures in total 7496 sq km., of which 3/4 are constituted by the three major islands of Tenerife (ten times the size of Elba), Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria. They have a subtropical-oceanic climate, with very mild winters (17% average in Jan. at Las Palmas) and scant precipitation; they are therefore renowned as winter climatic stations. The soil, very fertile, produces essentially early crops, bananas, tobacco, grapes, olives and citrus fruits. The position of the archipelago makes it a maritime port of call on the routes from Europe to West Africa or Latin America. One of the islands, Ferro, was adopted (from 1634) as the prime meridian (20° to the W. of Paris). Known since antiquity (Insulae Fortunatorum), they were rediscovered by the Italians in the 13th century and occupied by the Spanish in 1512. They form, today, two provinces of metropolitan Spain (and are therefore assigned as a rule to Europe); of these, Las Palmas (which takes its name from the most populous city: 151 thousand inhabitants) comprises Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (4053 sq km., 375,744 inhabitants in 1947); S. Cruz de Tenerife, the other eleven (3443 sq km. with 401,283 inhabitants).

Giuseppe Caraci

DIOCESE OF THE CANARIES

It was erected on 7 July 1406, that is, during the great Western Schism, by the Avignon pope Benedict XIII (Peter de Luna), who willed that the diocese have its seat at S. Marciale di Rubicon on the island of Lanzarote. The first bishop was the Franciscan Alfonso of San Lucar di Barrameda. Among his successors we find other members of the same Order and Dominicans, as well as a Hieronymite and a Benedictine. Innocent VIII in 1485 transferred the seat to Las Palmas, but this provision did not take effect until half a century later; from then on the bishop has resided in this capital, and has under his jurisdiction the islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lobos and Lanzarote. The diocese was divided in 1819, and from the islands of Tenerife, Gomera, Ferro and Palma the diocese of Tenerife or S. Cristoforo della Laguna (v.) was constituted. It has 184 churches, 111 parishes, 135 diocesan priests and 43 regulars; the inhabitants number 340,215, for the most part Catholics (1948). It is a suffragan of Seville and has as its patrons the Madonna del Pino and St. Peter Martyr.