Canary Islands

The Canary Islands are located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco.
They were known to the Romans as ‘Insulae Canarius’ meaning ‘Islands of the dogs’.

The Romans also thought they might be the ‘Fortunate Islands‘ or ‘Islands of the Blessed’ of Greek Mythology.
In 10 CE, during the reign of Augustus, a Roman Expedition from Mogador in Morocco, set out and explored the Canary Islands, Madeira and possibly the Cape Verde Islands.
Pliny the Elder wrote that an expedition set off in 50 BCE under the Mauretanian King Juba II, but that they found no people only dogs. ‘Canarius’ is dog in Latin, and so he called them the ‘Insulae Canarius’.

The Guanches are the indigenous population of the Canary Islands and are thought to be descended from the Berbers of North Africa.
Between 1402-1496 the Castilian Monarchs conquered the islands and made them into the Kingdom of the Canary Islands.

The Canary Current is the part of the Atlantic Gyre which flows south along the African Coast through the Canary Islands and Cape Verde Islands.
It then turns west and becomes the North Equatorial Current flowing towards the Caribbean.

Ptolemy used Mount Teide, in the Canary Islands as the Prime Meridian or Zero Meridian of the Roman World Chart.

Mogador, modern Essaouira, in Morocco was the nearest point for sailing to the Canary Islands.
Pliny the Elder quotes an account of Juba II, the King of Mauritania c. 50 BCE:
- Juba II sent an expedition in to re-open the Murex factory at Port of Mogador.
- Mogador then became the base for expeditions in 50 BCE to the Canaries, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands.
In 1 BCE Augustus planned a circumnavigation of Africa from Egypt to Mogador and the nearby naval base of Sala Colonia.

Pliny the Elder also quotes the Greek Zenophon of Lampsacus:
- The Gorgades, (meaning Cape Verde Islands) were two days sail from Hesperu Ceras (Cap Vert, the most western point of Africa).

Pliny the Elder also stated that the time taken to sail from the Gorgades (Cape Verde Islands) to the Hesperides (Ladies of the West) was 40 days. The Hesperides may have been further around the Cape of Africa, or across the Atlantic in South America.

Macaronesia is a group of four archipelagos located in the Atlantic Ocean near to the coasts of Europe and Africa.

Canary Islands