Beaches in Canary Islands

Volcanic islands off the African coast, and sand colour is the useful signal: black is local basalt, gold is often Saharan sand blown across or dredged offshore, and several of the best-known golden beaches were built or nourished deliberately — Las Teresitas on Tenerife among them. The Canary Current keeps water cooler than the latitude suggests, around nineteen to twenty-three degrees, and the trade wind is why the archipelago is a windsurfing centre, with El Médano and Famara the fixtures. Northern coasts take Atlantic swell and are frequently red-flagged; southern coasts are calm, which is where the resorts went, and the asymmetry holds on every island. Lanzarote is the youngest surface, a landscape of lava fields and a shore designed in large part by César Manrique, who set the island's building rules; Fuerteventura has the dune fields at Corralejo and Cofete; La Gomera and El Hierro have almost no sand and very few visitors. Practically: the islands are close together but each has its own character, and ferries between them take hours rather than minutes. Winter is the high season, which inverts the European norm, and the north coasts are frequently red-flagged in any season.

They spread across three beach worlds, the largest group being two volcanic shores. All sit on open ocean. Together they account for 13 km of shore. · computed from the 4 records below