Lanzarote

Area: 795 sq.km/307 sq.mi

Population: 54,000

Lanzarote is the most easterly of the Canaries, separated from Africa by 115km/71mi of sea. Off its northern tip are the three small islands of Graciosa, Montaña Clara and Alegranza. Like Gran Canaria, Lanzarote has been invaded in recent years by mass tourism, but it has developed in a rather different way. The holiday settlements are smaller and less brash, and the extraordinary lava landscape with its gleaming white towns exerts a powerful charm.

Topography

The island's greatest length from north to south is 60km/37mi, from east to west 20km/12.5mi. There is more evidence of volcanic activity on Lanzarote than on the other islands in the Canaries: it has about 300 volcanic cones, varying in height but mostly between 400m/1,300ft and 600m/2,000ft, which create a kind of lunar landscape in the interior of the island. At the north end of the island the hills fall steeply down to the strait between Lanzarote and Graciosa, El Río; in the south they merge gradually into the coastal plain, El Rubicón.