Born of fire

Tenerife rose from the floor of the Atlantic as several separate volcanic islands. The oldest rocks are in the massifs of Anaga in the north-east, Teno in the north-west and Adeje in the south; later eruptions filled the gaps between them and welded a single island together.

Much more recently, within the last 200,000 years, a new volcano grew inside the vast Las Cañadas caldera: Teide. At 3,715 metres it is the highest mountain in Spain, and it is still active. An eruption in 1706 buried the port of Garachico, and the island's most recent eruption, Chinyero, took place in 1909 on the north-west flank.

The first Tenerifans

The island's first people, the Guanches, came from North Africa and were related to the Amazigh (Berber) peoples; genetic studies of their remains confirm that origin. They arrived more than two thousand years ago, by sea, and lived without metal: their tools were made of stone, including sharp obsidian from Teide, bone and wood.

They herded goats and sheep, grew barley and ate gofio, a flour of toasted grain that is still a Canarian staple. Many lived in caves. They preserved some of their dead as mummies, a process called mirlado, and several of those mummies can be seen at the Museo de la Naturaleza y Arqueología (MUNA) in Santa Cruz.

By the 15th century the island was divided into nine kingdoms, the menceyatos, each ruled by a mencey: Anaga, Tegueste, Tacoronte, Taoro, Icod, Daute, Adeje, Abona and Güímar. Teide, which they called Echeyde, was a sacred mountain.

According to tradition, around the year 1400 two Guanche goatherds found a wooden statue of the Virgin on a beach in the menceyato of Güímar. The Virgin of Candelaria became the patroness of the Canary Islands, and every August thousands of pilgrims walk through the night to her basilica, watched over by bronze statues of the nine menceyes.

The last island to fall

Tenerife was the last of the Canary Islands to be conquered by the Crown of Castile. In 1494 Alonso Fernández de Lugo landed at Añaza, where Santa Cruz stands today. The island was divided: four menceyatos, Anaga, Güímar, Abona and Adeje, made peace with the newcomers, while the northern kingdoms led by Bencomo, mencey of Taoro, resisted.

In May 1494 Bencomo's warriors ambushed Lugo's army in the ravine of Acentejo and inflicted a crushing defeat. The town on that spot is still called La Matanza de Acentejo, 'the slaughter of Acentejo'.

Lugo returned with reinforcements. In November 1495 he won the battle of Aguere, on the plain where La Laguna now stands, and in December 1495 the second battle of Acentejo, remembered in the name of the neighbouring town, La Victoria de Acentejo. Weakened by war and by an epidemic, the remaining menceyes surrendered in 1496.

La Laguna, sugar and wine

Lugo founded San Cristóbal de La Laguna as the island's capital in 1496. Its streets were laid out on an open grid with no city walls, a plan that later served as a model for colonial cities in the Americas. The old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

Settlers arrived from Castile and Andalusia, Portugal, Genoa and Flanders. Sugar cane was the first great export; when cheaper American sugar undercut it, vineyards took over. Tenerife's Malvasía wine, known in England as 'canary', was poured in London taverns, and Shakespeare's characters call for a cup of it.

That trade paid for the noble houses of La Orotava and La Laguna, with their carved wooden balconies and hidden patios, and made Garachico the island's busiest port.

A volcano, a garden and an admiral

On 5 May 1706 an eruption sent rivers of lava into Garachico. Much of the town was destroyed and its harbour was filled in, so trade moved to Puerto de la Cruz and Santa Cruz. The lava that reached the sea later formed the natural rock pools that bathers enjoy today, beside the 16th-century Castillo de San Miguel.

In 1788 King Charles III ordered the creation of a botanical garden in Puerto de la Cruz to acclimatise tropical plants on their way to Spain. The Jardín de Aclimatación de La Orotava is still open to visitors.

On the night of 24 to 25 July 1797 a British squadron under Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked Santa Cruz. The defenders, led by General Antonio Gutiérrez, drove the assault back, and Nelson was hit in the right arm, which had to be amputated. The cannon traditionally credited with the shot, El Tigre, is on display in the remains of the Castillo de San Cristóbal beneath Plaza de España.

Free ports, bananas and the first visitors

In 1833 Santa Cruz de Tenerife became the capital of the single province of the Canary Islands, a role it kept until the province was split in two in 1927. In 1852 a free-ports law opened the islands to international shipping.

Cochineal, a red dye harvested from insects that live on prickly pears, brought a short boom until synthetic dyes replaced it. Bananas followed, shipped mostly to Britain, and became the island's new cash crop.

The British also came for the climate. From the late 19th century Puerto de la Cruz welcomed convalescents and travellers, and its hotels, led by the Grand Hotel Taoro, and its English library were the first steps of Tenerife's long relationship with tourism.

From emigration to a world destination

The first half of the 20th century brought hardship, and many Tenerifans emigrated, above all to Cuba and Venezuela. From the 1960s mass tourism transformed the south: Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas grew from fishing villages and tomato fields into resorts.

In 1977 two jumbo jets collided in fog at Los Rodeos airport, the deadliest accident in aviation history. Tenerife South airport opened the following year.

With the Statute of Autonomy of 1982 the Canary Islands became a self-governing community of Spain, with Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas sharing the capital. Teide National Park, created in 1954, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, and the Anaga massif a Biosphere Reserve in 2015.