The culture of Gran Canaria blends rural memory, popular festivals, city life, music, crafts and a cuisine rooted in both the midlands and the coast.
Gran Canaria keeps traditions that cannot be explained only as festive events: they depend on trades, paths, speech, food and community memory.
Among its main reference points are Historic Las Palmas, Aboriginal landscape, Natural contrasts, which connect landscape, memory and everyday life. Living culture shows how the island turns its past into recognisable practices within contemporary society.
Key points
Nuestra Señora del Pino in Teror
The patron saint of Gran Canaria, venerated in Teror, turns the town into one of the archipelago's most important pilgrimage centres every 8 September.
The carnival of Las Palmas
The Las Palmas carnival is one of the best attended in Spain, with a tradition that blends Atlantic, African and Latin American influences in its parade troupes.
Music and the timple in Las Palmas
The popular music of Gran Canaria has its own distinct forms, with the timple and the singing voice at the heart of an oral tradition linking the midlands, the ports and village festivals.
Crafts of the midlands
Indigenous pottery, openwork embroidery and palm-leaf basketry are living craft traditions in the inland municipalities, especially in Ingenio and Aguimes.
Cooking from the ravines and the coast
Rancho canario, sancocho, papas arrugadas and mojo embody a cuisine of popular origin that draws on the resources of the countryside, the sea and the ravines.