Geography of La Graciosa

La Graciosa lies north of Lanzarote and is the smallest of the inhabited Canary Islands: around 29 square kilometres according to current data, which classic geographical studies put at about 27. Since 2018 it has been officially recognised as the eighth island of the archipelago, but its physical singularity long predates any administrative declaration. It is an extensive sandy plain from which only a few volcanic cones rise, a horizontal, luminous landscape that contrasts with the great Famara cliff facing it from Lanzarote.

The island is the largest and the only inhabited one of the Chinijo Archipelago, the string of islands and islets that closes the Canary archipelago to the north-east: La Graciosa, Alegranza, Montaña Clara, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste. Geological studies indicate that these islets rest on an abrasion platform lying about one hundred metres deep, built on the materials of Lanzarote's Series I, and that the base of their edifices was once connected to the Famara massif, later covered by eruptions of the more recent series.

It is separated from Lanzarote by El Río, an arm of the sea roughly one kilometre wide —less at its narrowest point— with a depth that does not exceed ten metres. On the other side rises the Famara cliff, a true natural barrier some 450 metres high that for generations had to be climbed to bring water and farm produce from Lanzarote. This sheltered channel was also a historic anchorage: the nineteenth-century Lanzarote press even argued that the port of El Río was the widest and safest in the archipelago.

The island's relief is organised around four volcanic edifices that interrupt the continuity of the plain. From south to north follow Montaña Amarilla, Montaña del Mojón, the Las Agujas complex and Montaña Bermeja. Within Las Agujas two units can be distinguished, the older Agujas Grandes and the more recent Agujas Chicas, and in the former stands Montaña de Pedro Barba, which at 266 metres is the island's highest point. Montaña Amarilla and Montaña Bermeja, whose names betray the colour of their materials, appear to be the youngest edifices of the group.

Between the cones stretches the jable, the mantle of sand covering much of the island. Alongside the active dunes, geologists have studied extensive fossil dunes and raised beaches of Quaternary age, such as the deposits of Caleta de Sebo, Punta de la Herradura or Morros Negros, rich in land snails, fossil hymenopteran nests and remains of seabirds of the genus Puffinus. This sandy nature is compounded by a decisive shortage: the total absence of drinking-water springs, which historically conditioned settlement and forced dependence on water brought from Lanzarote or collected in cisterns.

The Graciosa coast alternates low cliffs, rocky shallows and some of the most celebrated beaches in the Canaries. Playa de Las Conchas, reached by crossing the northern dunes, the small cove of La Francesa, with turquoise water and fine sand, or Baja del Ganado, prized by wave lovers, sum up this untouched shoreline. On the island the streets remain free of asphalt and the natural way to explore it is on foot or by bicycle, from Caleta de Sebo towards Montaña Amarilla or along the routes that lead to the summit of Montaña Bermeja.

All this territory is protected. The Chinijo Archipelago Natural Park, established in Law 12/1994 on Natural Spaces of the Canaries, covers the five islets, the Famara cliffs and the nearby jable, with an area of 9,112 hectares shared between the municipalities of Haría and Teguise; around it a marine reserve is also organised to protect the seabed and artisanal fishing. The islets host the best and most diverse colonies of seabirds and raptors in the archipelago, with the presence of Eleonora's falcon, the osprey, the white-faced storm petrel and Cory's shearwater. Within this space, human life is concentrated in two small coves sheltered from the trade winds: Caleta de Sebo, the main settlement, and Pedro Barba, a tiny hamlet uninhabited for most of the year.