Formerly part of the Kingdom of Mallorca, the islands conformed a province in the 19th century provincial division, which in 1983 received a Statute of Autonomy. In its later reform of 2007, the Statute designates the Balearic Islands as one of the nationalities of Spain.[7] The official languages of the Balearic Islands are Spanish[8] and Catalan.[9]
The islands have a Mediterranean climate, and the four major islands are all popular tourist destinations. Ibiza, in particular, is known as an international party destination, attracting many of the world's most popular DJs to its nightclubs.[10] The islands' culture and cuisine are similar to those of the rest of Spain but have their own distinctive features.
Etymology
The official name of the Balearic Islands in Catalan is Illes Balears, while in Spanish, they are known as the Islas Baleares.
The ancient Greeks usually adopted local names into their own language, but they called the islands Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiai, unlike the native inhabitants of the islands, as well as the Carthaginians and Romans, who called them Βαλεαρεῖς/Baleareis.[11]
The term Balearic may derive from Greek (Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae and Βαλλιαρεῖς/Balliareis).[12] In Latin, it was Baleares.
Of the various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands—Gymnasiae and Baleares—classical sources provide two.
According to Lycophron'sAlexandra verses, the islands were called Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae (γυμνός/gymnos, meaning 'naked' in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of the balmy year-round climate. However, Strabo thought that Gymnesiai probably referred to the light equipment used by the Balearic troops γυμνῆται/gymnetae.[13]
Most of the ancient Greek and Roman writers thought that the name of the people, (βαλεαρεῖς/baleareis, from βάλλω/ballo: ancient Greek meaning 'to launch') was based on their skill as slingers. However, Strabo thought the name was of Phoenician origin. He observed that it was the Phoenician word for lightly armoured soldiers, which the ancient Greeks called γυμνῆτας/gymnetas.[13] The root bal arguably suggests a Phoenician origin; Strabo, in Volume III, Book XIV of his Geography suggests that the name comes from the Phoenician balearides.[14]
Geology
The Balearic Islands are on a raised platform called the Balearic Promontory, and were formed by uplift. They are cut by a network of northwest to southeast faults.[15][16]
Geography and hydrography
Majorca in 2007
The main islands of the autonomous community are Majorca (Mallorca), Menorca/Minorca (Menorca), Ibiza (Eivissa/Ibiza), and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations. Amongst the minor islands is Cabrera, the location of the Cabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park. Neighbours: Algeria (south), Spain's Catalonia and Valencian Community (west), France's South (north), and France's Corsica as well as Italy's Sardinia (east). The Balearic Islands province has the longest coastline of any provinces in Spain, with a length of coastline 1,428 kilometres.
The islands can be further grouped, with Majorca, Menorca, and Cabrera as the Gymnesian Islands (Illes Gimnèsies), and Ibiza and Formentera as the Pityusic Islands (Illes Pitiüses officially in Catalan), also referred to as the Pityuses (or sometimes informally in English as the Pine Islands). Many minor islands or islets are close to the biggest islands, such as Es Conills, Es Vedrà, Sa Conillera, Dragonera, S'Espalmador, S'Espardell, Ses Bledes, Santa Eulària, Plana, Foradada, Tagomago, Na Redona, Colom, L'Aire, etc.
The Balearic Front is a sea density regime north of the Balearic Islands on the shelf slope of the Balearic Islands, which is responsible for some of the surface-flow characteristics of the Balearic Sea.[17]
The earliest known evidence of inhabitation of the Balearic Islands is dated to the 3rd millennium BC, around 2500-2300 BC from the Iberian Peninsula or southern France, by people associated with the Bell Beaker culture.[22][23]
Little is recorded on the inhabitants of the islands during classical antiquity, though many legends exist. The story, preserved by Lycophron, that certain shipwrecked Greek Boeotians were cast nude on the islands, was evidently invented to account for the name Gymnesiae (Ancient Greek: Γυμνήσιαι). In addition, Diodorus Siculus writes that the Greeks called the islands Gymnesiae because the inhabitants were naked (γυμνοί) during the summer time.[24] Also, a tradition holds that the islands were colonized by Rhodes after the Trojan War.[13]
The islands had a very mixed population. Several stories describing them as having unusual habits. Some have it that they went naked year-round (a folk etymology claims this inspired the islands’ name), some say they went naked only in the summer, some that they wore only sheepskins—until the Phoenicians arrived and provided them with broad-bordered tunics.
Other stories have it that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that their men were remarkable for their love of women and would trade three or four men to ransom one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, and forbade the importation of the precious metals—so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money. The Roman Diodorus Siculus described their marriage and funeral customs (v. 18 book 6 chapter 5), noting that Roman observers found those customs peculiar.
In ancient times, the islanders of the Gymnesian Islands (Illes Gimnèsies) constructed talayots, and were famous for their skill with the sling. As slingers, they served as mercenaries, first under the Carthaginians, and afterwards under the Romans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, and a javelin burnt at the end, and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head (Strabo p. 168; Eustath.), or, as seen in other sources, one round the head, one round the body, and one in the hand. (Diodorus) The three slings were of different lengths, for stones of different sizes; the largest they hurled with as much force as if it were flung from a catapult; and they seldom missed their mark. To this exercise, they were trained from infancy, in order to earn their livelihood as mercenary soldiers. It is said that the mothers allowed their children to eat bread only when they had struck it off a post with the sling.[25]
The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times;[26] a remarkable trace of their colonisation is preserved in the town of Mago (Maó in Menorca). After the fall of Carthage in 146 BC, the islands seem to have been virtually independent. Notwithstanding their celebrity in war, the people were generally very quiet and inoffensive.[27] The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by Q. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC.[28] Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia.[29] The islands belonged, under the Roman Empire, to the conventus of Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena), in the province of Hispania Tarraconensis, of which province they formed the fourth district, under the government of a praefectus pro legato. An inscription of the time of Nero mentions the PRAEF. PRAE LEGATO INSULAR. BALIARUM. (Orelli, No. 732, who, with Muratori, reads pro for prae.) They were afterwards made a separate province, called Hispania Balearica, probably in the division of the empire under Constantine.[30]
The two largest islands (the Balearic Islands, in their historical sense) had numerous excellent harbours, though rocky at their mouth, and requiring care in entering them (Strabo, Eustath.; Port Mahon is one of the finest harbours in the world). Both were extremely fertile in all produce, except wine and olive oil.[31] They were celebrated for their cattle, especially for the mules of the lesser island; they had an immense number of rabbits, and were free from all venomous reptiles.[32] Amongst the snails valued by the Romans as a diet was a species from the Balearic Isles called cavaticae because they were bred in caves.[33] Their chief mineral product was the red earth, called sinope, which was used by painters.[34] Their resin and pitch are mentioned by Dioscorides.[35] The population of the two islands is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.
The part of the Mediterranean east of Spain, around the Balearic Isles, was called Mare Balearicum,[36] or Sinus Balearicus.[37]
The Vandals under Genseric conquered the Islands sometime between 461 and 468 during their war on the Roman Empire. However, in late 533 or early 534, following the Battle of Ad Decimum, the troops of Belisarius reestablished control of the islands for the Romans. Imperial power receded precipitately in the western Mediterranean after the fall of Carthage and the Exarchate of Africa to the Umayyad Caliphate in 698, and in 707 the islands submitted to the terms of an Umayyad fleet, which allowed the residents to maintain their traditions and religion as well as a high degree of autonomy. Now nominally both Byzantine and Umayyad, the de facto independent islands occupied a strategic and profitable grey area between the competing religions and kingdoms of the western Mediterranean. The prosperous islands were thoroughly sacked by the SwedishViking King Björn Ironside and his brother Hastein during their Mediterranean raid of 859–862.
In 902, the heavy use of the islands as a pirate base provoked the Emirate of Córdoba, nominally the island's overlords, to invade and incorporate the islands into their state. However, the Cordoban emirate disintegrated in civil war and partition in the early eleventh century, breaking into smaller states called taifa. Mujahid al-Siqlabi, the ruler of the Taifa of Dénia, sent a fleet and seized control of the islands in 1015, using it as the base for subsequent expeditions to Sardinia and Pisa. In 1050, the island's governor Abd Allah ibn Aglab rebelled and established the independent Taifa of Mallorca.
The crusade sacked Palma in 1115 and generally reduced the islands, ending their period as a great sea power, but then withdrew. Within a year, the now shattered islands were conquered by the BerberAlmoravid dynasty, whose aggressive, militant approach to religion mirrored that of the crusaders and departed from the island's history as a tolerant[citation needed] haven under Cordoba and the taifa. The Almoravids were conquered and deposed in North Africa and on the Iberian Peninsula by the rival Almohad Dynasty of Marrakech in 1147. Muhammad ibn Ganiya, the Almoravid claimant, fled to Palma and established his capital there. His dynasty, the Banu Ghaniya, sought allies in their effort to recover their kingdom from the Almohads, leading them to grant Genoa and Pisa their first commercial concessions on the islands. In 1184, an expedition was sent to recapture Ifriqiya (the coastal areas of what is today Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya) but ended in defeat. Fearing reprisals, the inhabitants of the Balearics rebelled against the Almoravids and accepted Almohad suzerainty in 1187.
King James I of Aragon (furthest right) during his conquest of Mallorca in 1229.
On the last day of 1229, King James I of Aragon captured Palma after a three-month siege. The rest of Mallorca quickly followed. Menorca fell in 1232 and Ibiza in 1235. In 1236, James traded most of the islands to Peter I, Count of Urgell for Urgell, which he incorporated into his kingdom. Peter ruled from Palma, but after his death without issue in 1258, the islands reverted by the terms of the deal to the Crown of Aragon.
Flag of the medieval Kingdom of Majorca (1229–1715), which encompassed all Balearic Islands.
James died in 1276, having partitioned his domains between his sons in his will. The will created a new Kingdom of Mallorca from the Balearic islands and the mainland counties of Roussillon or Montpellier, which was left to his son James II. However, the terms of the will specified that the new kingdom be a vassal state to the Crown of Aragon, which was left to his older brother Peter. Chafing under the vassalage, James joined forces with the Pope Martin IV and Philip III of France against his brother in the Aragonese Crusade, leading to a 10-year Aragonese occupation before the islands were restored in the 1295 Treaty of Anagni. The tension between the kingdoms continued through the generations until James' grandson James III was killed by the invading army of Peter's grandson Peter IV at the 1349 Battle of Llucmajor. The Balearic Islands were then incorporated directly into the Crown of Aragon.
In 1469, Ferdinand II of Aragon (king of Aragon) and Isabella I of Castile (queen of Castile) were married. After their deaths, their respective territories (until then governed separately) were governed jointly, in the person of their grandson, the Emperor Charles V. This can be considered the foundation of the modern Spanish state, albeit a decentralized one wherein the various component territories within the united crowns retained their particular historic laws and privileges.
Menorca was finally returned to Spain by the Treaty of Amiens during the French Revolutionary Wars, following the last British occupation, which lasted from 1798 to 1802. The continued presence of British naval forces, however, meant that the Balearic Islands were never occupied by the French during the Napoleonic Wars.
20th century
The islands saw limited fighting in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War, with Menorca and Formentera staying loyal to the Republican Spanish Government, while the rest of the Balearic Islands supported the Spanish Nationalists. The Republican forces recaptured Ibiza early in the conflict, but were unable to take control of Majorca in the Battle of Majorca in August 1936, an amphibious landing aimed at driving the Nationalists from the island and reclaiming it for the Republic. After the battle, Nationalist forces re-took Ibiza in September 1936. Menorca would be occupied by the Nationalists in February 1939 after the Battle of Menorca.
The cuisine of the islands can be grouped as part of wider Catalan, Spanish or Mediterranean cuisines. It features much pastry, cheese, wine, pork and seafood. Sobrassada is a local pork sausage. Lobster stew (so-called caldereta) from Menorca, is one of their most sought after dishes.[39]Mayonnaise is said to originate from the Menorcan city of Maó (Mahón)[40] which also produces its own cheese. Local pastries include Ensaïmada, Flaó and Coca.
Languages
Both Catalan and Spanish are official languages in the islands. Virtually all residents of the Balearic Islands speak Spanish fluently. Most of the native speakers of Spanish in the islands have family roots elsewhere in Spain.[41]
Catalan is designated as a llengua pròpia, literally own language in its statute of autonomy. The Balearic dialect features several differences from standard Catalan. Typically, speakers of Balearic Catalan call their own language with a name specific to each island: Mallorquí, Menorquí, Eivissenc, Formenterenc. In 2003 74.6% of the Islands' residents knew how to speak Catalan (either Balearic or mainland) and 93.1% could understand it.[42] The 2011 census, using slightly different phrasing, reported that 63.4% could fluently speak and 88.5% could understand Catalan.[43]
Other languages, such as English, French, German and Italian, are often spoken by locals, especially those who work in the tourism industry.
Circa 2016 the islands had 1,107,220 total residents; the figures of Germans and British respectively were 20,451 and 16,134. Between 2016 and 2017 people from other parts of Spain moved to the Balearics, while the foreign population declined by 2,000. In 2007 there were 29,189 Germans, 19,803 British, 17,935 Moroccans, 13,100 Ecuadoreans, 11,933 Italians, and 11,129 Argentines. The numbers of Germans, British, and South Americans declined between 2007 and 2017 while the largest-increasing populations were the Moroccans, Italians, and Romanians.[46]
Circa 2017 there were 1,115,999 residents of the Balearics; 16.7% of the islands' population were foreign (non-Spanish). At that time the islands had 23,919 Moroccans, 19,209 Germans, 16,877 Italians, and 14,981 British registered in town halls. The next-largest foreign groups were the Romanians; the Bulgarians; the Argentines, numbering at 6,584; the French; the Colombians; and the Ecuadoreans, numbering at 5,437.[46]
At the Census of 1 January 2021, the population had increased to 1,183,415 inhabitants.
Each one of the four islands are administered, along with its surrounding minor islands and islets, by an insular council (consell insular in Catalan) of the same name. These four insular councils are the first level of subdivision in the autonomous community (and province) of Illes Balears.[49]
Before administrative reform in 1977, Ibiza and Formentera formed a single insular council, covering the whole of the Pitiusic Islands.
The insular council of Mallorca is further subdivided into six comarques; three other comarques cover the same territory as the three remaining insular councils.
These nine comarques are then subdivided into municipalities (municipis), with the exception of Formentera, which is at the same time an insular council, a comarca, and a municipality.
Note that the maritime and terrestrial natural reserves in the Balearic Islands are not owned by the municipalities, even if they fall within their territory, but are owned and managed by the respective insular councils.
Those municipalities are further subdivided into civil parishes (parròquies), that are slightly larger than the traditional religious parishes.
On Ibiza and Formentera parishes are further divided into administrative villages (named véndes in Catalan); each vénda is grouping several nearby hamlets (casaments) and their immediate surroundings. These casaments are traditionally formed by grouping together several cubic houses to form a defensive block with windows open to the east (against heat), sharing their collective precious water resources, whose residents decide and plan common collective works. However, these last levels of subdivisions do not have their own local administration: they are mostly natural economical units for agriculture (and consequently referenced in local norms for constructions and urbanisation as well) and the reference space for families (they may be appended to the names of people and their properties) and are still used in statistics. Historically, these structures had been used for defensive purpose as well, and were more tied to the local Catholic church and parishes (notably after the Reconquista).
The gross domestic product (GDP) of the autonomous community was 32.5 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.7% of Spanish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 29,700 euros or 98% of the EU27 average in the same year.[53]
^ abcStrab. xiv. p. 654; Plin. l. c "The Rhodians, like the Baleares, were celebrated slingers" Sil. Ital. iii. 364, 365: "Jam cui Tlepolemus sator, et cui Lindus origo, Funda bella ferens Balearis et alite plumbo."
^Aristot. de Mir. Ausc. 89; Diodorus, but Pliny praises their wine as well as their corn, xiv. 6. s. 8, xviii. 7. s. 12: the two writers are speaking, in fact, of different periods.
^Strabo, Mela; Pliny l. c., viii. 58. s. 83, xxxv. 19. s. 59; Varro, R. R. iii. 12; Aelian, H. A. xiii. 15; Gaius Julius Solinus 26.
^"Mayonnaise". Andalucia For Holidays. 6 July 2013. Archived from the original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
^"Enquesta d'usos lingüístics a les Illes Balears 2014 - Anàlisi" (in Catalan). Conselleria de Cultura, Participació i Esports (Govern de les Illes Balears) - Departament de Cultura (Generalitat de Catalunya) - Universitat de les Illes Balears. October 2017. Retrieved 6 December 2021. A partir dels anys seixanta, la població illenca pràcticament s'ha triplicat. El principal factor ha estat l'aportació de la immigració, que des d'un punt de vista lingüístic inclou les persones nascudes fora dels territoris de llengua catalana. Aquest factor, a més d'aportar no catalanoparlants procedents de fora del domini lingüístic, també n'aporta de nascuts a les Illes, majoritàriament, en el si de famílies immigrades. Per les circumstàncies i limitacions socials i polítiques de la societat que les acull, la integració lingüística d'aquestes persones sol ser lenta i incompleta. [] Fins a final de segle, gran part de la població immigrada procedia de l'Estat espanyol, però a partir d'aquests anys la immigració estrangera ha crescut fins a superar en nombre l'espanyola. En aquest sentit, també convé tenir en compte la incidència del turisme, que al llarg de l'any aporta un contingent de persones que multiplica per deu el nombre de residents, amb efectes directes en el paisatge lingüístic i la percepció dels rols de les diferents llengües que entren en contacte. [Beginning with the 1960s, the population of the Islands has virtually tripled. The main factor has been immigration, which from a linguistic point of view includes people born outside of the Catalan speaking area. This factor, in addition to adding non-Catalan speakers from outside that area, includes also those born in the Islands within immigrant families. Because of the circumstances and political and social limitations of the society which accommodates them, the linguistic integration of these people is usually slow and incomplete. [...] Until the end of the [20th] century, a good deal of the immigrant population came from Spain, but afterwards foreign immigration has grown and has surpassed the Spanish one. [...] One has to consider also the impact of tourism [...].]
^"Mallorca Ferry Schedule". DirectFerries.com. Direct Ferries Limited. Retrieved 11 March 2022. there are on average around 167 ferries running per week, across 12 different routes, provided by 3 different ferry operators
Guide to yacht clubs and marinas in Spain: Costa Blanca, Costa del Azahar, Islas Baleares (Madrid: Ministry of Transportation, Tourism and Communications, General Office of the Secretary of Tourism, General Office of Tourism Companies and Activities, 1987)
As found in the Notitia Dignitatum. Provincial administration reformed and dioceses established by Diocletian, c. 293. Permanent praetorian prefectures established after the death of Constantine I. Empire permanently partitioned after 395. Exarchates of Ravenna and Africa established after 584. After massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the remaining provinces were superseded by the theme system in c. 640–660, although in Asia Minor and parts of Greece they survived under the themes until the early 9th century.
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