Formerly part of theKingdom of Majorca, the islands were made a province in the 19th century provincial division, which in 1983 received aStatute of Autonomy. In its 2007 reform, the Statute designated the Balearic Islands as one of Spain'snationalities.[9] The Balearic Islands' officiallanguages areCatalan andSpanish.
The islands have aMediterranean 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 popularDJs to itsnightclubs.[10] The islands' culture and cuisine are similar to those of the rest of Spain but have their own distinctive features.
The official name of the Balearic Islands inCatalan isIlles Balears, while in Spanish, they are known as theIslas Baleares.
The ancient Greeks usually adopted local names into their own language, but they called the islandsΓυμνησίαι/Gymnesiai, unlike either the native inhabitants of the islands, theCarthaginians, or the Romans, who called themΒαλεαρεῖς, with the Romans also calling them theBaleares.[11][12]
The termBalearic may derive fromGreek (Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae andΒαλλιαρεῖς/Balliareis).[13] InLatin, it wasBaleares.
Of the various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands—Gymnasiae andBaleares—classical sources provide two.
According toLycophron'sAlexandra verses, the islands were calledΓυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae (γυμνός/gymnos, meaning 'naked' in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of the mostly balmy year-round climate. ButStrabo thought thatGymnesiai probably referred to the light equipment used by the Balearic troopsγυμνῆται/gymnetae.[14]
Most of the ancient Greek and Roman writers thought the name of the people, (βαλεαρεῖς/baleareis, fromβάλλω/ballo, meaning 'to launch'), was based on their skill asslingers, but Strabo thought the name was of Phoenician origin. He observed that it was the Phoenician word for lightly armoured soldiers, which the ancient Greeks calledγυμνῆτας/gymnetas.[14] The rootbal arguably suggests a Phoenician origin; in Volume III, Book XIV of hisGeography, Strabo suggests that the name comes from the Phoenicianbalearides.[15]
The autonomous community's main islands are Mallorca/Majorca (Mallorca), Menorca/Minorca (Menorca), Ibiza (Eivissa/Ibiza), and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations. Amongst the minor islands is Cabrera, the location of theCabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park. The Balearic Islands are neighboured byAlgeria to the south,Spain'sCatalonia andValencian Community to the west,France's South to the north, andFrance'sCorsica as well asItaly'sSardinia to the east. The Balearic Islands province has the longest coastline of any province in Spain, at 1,428 kilometres.
The Balearic Islands are on a raised platform called theBalearic Promontory, and were formed byuplift. They are cut by a network of northwest to southeastfaults.[16][17]
The islands can be further grouped with Mallorca, Menorca, and Cabrera as theGymnesian Islands (Illes Gimnèsies), and Ibiza and Formentera as thePityusic Islands (Illes Pitiüses officially in Catalan), also called the Pityuses (or sometimes informally in English 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, and L'Aire.
TheBalearic Front is a sea density regime north of the Balearic Islands on their shelf slope that is responsible for some of the surface-flow characteristics of theBalearic Sea.[18]
The earliest known evidence of habitation of the Balearic Islands dates to the3rd millennium BC (around 2500–2300 BC) from the Iberian Peninsula or southern France, by people associated with theBell Beaker culture.[23][24]
Little is recorded about the inhabitants of the islands during classical antiquity, though many legends exist. The story, preserved byLycophron, that certain shipwreckedGreek 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.[25] Also, a tradition holds that the islands were colonized byRhodes after theTrojan War.[14]
The islands had a very mixed population. Several stories describe them as having unusual habits. Some have it that they went naked year-round (afolk etymology claims this inspired the islands' name), some say they went naked only in the summer, some that they wore only sheepskins—until thePhoenicians 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 RomanDiodorus 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 theGymnesian Islands (Illes Gimnèsies) constructedtalayots, and were famous for their skill with thesling. Asslingers, they served as mercenaries, first under theCarthaginians, and afterwards under theRomans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a smallbuckler, and a javelinburnt 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.[26]
The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times;[27] a remarkable trace of their colonisation is preserved in the town of Mago (Maó inMenorca). After the fall ofCarthage in 146 BC, the islands seem to have been virtually independent. Notwithstanding their celebrity in war, the people were generally very quiet and inoffensive.[28] The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered byQ. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC.[29] Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities ofPalma andPollentia.[30] The islands belonged, under theRoman Empire, to the conventus ofCarthago Nova (modern Cartagena), in theprovince ofHispania Tarraconensis, of which province they formed the fourth district, under the government of a praefectus pro legato. An inscription of the time ofNero mentions the PRAEF. PRAE LEGATO INSULAR. BALIARUM. (Orelli, No. 732, who, with Muratori, readspro forprae.) They were afterwards made a separate province, calledHispania Balearica, probably in the division of the empire underConstantine.[31]
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.[32] 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.[33] Amongst the snails valued by the Romans as a diet was a species from the Balearic Isles calledcavaticae because they were bred in caves.[34] Their chief mineral product was the red earth, calledsinope, which was used by painters.[35] Their resin and pitch are mentioned byDioscorides.[36] The population of the two islands is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.
The part of theMediterranean east of Spain, around the Balearic Isles, was calledMare Balearicum,[37] orSinus Balearicus.[38]
TheVandals underGenseric conquered the Islands sometime between 461 and 468 during their war on theRoman Empire. However, in late 533 or early 534, following theBattle of Ad Decimum, the troops ofBelisarius reestablished control of the islands for the Romans. Imperial power receded precipitately in the western Mediterranean after the fall ofCarthage and theExarchate of Africa to theUmayyad Caliphate in 698, and in 707 the islands submitted to the terms of an Umayyad fleet,[citation needed] which allowed the residents to maintain their traditions and religion as well as a high degree of autonomy. Now nominally both Byzantine and Umayyad, thede facto independent islands occupied a strategic and profitable grey area between the competing religions and kingdoms of the western Mediterranean.[citation needed] The prosperous islands were thoroughly sacked by theSwedishViking KingBjörn Ironside and his brotherHastein during their Mediterranean raid of 859–862.
In 902, the heavy use of the islands as a pirate base provoked theEmirate 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 calledtaifas. In 903, theMuslims under theArab CommanderIssam al-Khawlani defeated theFranks and captured the Balearic Islands.[39]
Mujahid al-Siqlabi, the ruler of theTaifa of Dénia, sent a fleet and seized control of the islands in 1015, using it as the base for subsequent expeditions toSardinia andPisa. In 1050, the island's governor Abd Allah ibn Aglab rebelled and established the independentTaifa 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 theBerberAlmoravid 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 thetaifa. The Almoravids were conquered and deposed in North Africa and on the Iberian Peninsula by the rivalAlmohad Dynasty ofMarrakesh in 1147. Muhammad ibn Ganiya, the Almoravid claimant, fled to Palma and established his capital there. His dynasty, theBanu 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 recaptureIfriqiya (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.
KingJames I of Aragon (furthest right) during his conquest of Mallorca in 1229.
On the last day of 1229, KingJames 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 toPeter 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 theCrown of Aragon.
Flag of the medievalKingdom 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 newKingdom of Mallorca from the Balearic islands and the mainland counties ofRoussillon orMontpellier, which was left to his sonJames II. However, the terms of the will specified that the new kingdom be a vassal state to theCrown of Aragon, which was left to his older brotherPeter. Chafing under the vassalage, James joined forces with the PopeMartin IV andPhilip III of France against his brother in theAragonese Crusade, leading to a 10-year Aragonese occupation before the islands were restored in the 1295Treaty of Anagni. The tension between the kingdoms continued through the generations until James' grandsonJames III was killed by the invading army of Peter's grandsonPeter IV at the 1349Battle of Llucmajor. The Balearic Islands were then incorporated directly into the Crown of Aragon.
In 1469,Ferdinand II of Aragon (king of Aragon) andIsabella I of Castile (queen ofCastile) were married. After their deaths, their respective territories (until then governed separately) were governed jointly, in the person of their grandson, the EmperorCharles 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 theTreaty of Amiens during the French Revolutionary Wars, followingthe 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 theNapoleonic Wars.
The islands saw limited fighting in the 1936–1939Spanish Civil War, with Menorca and Formentera staying loyal to theRepublican Spanish Government, while the rest of the Balearic Islands supported the SpanishNationalists. The Republican forces recaptured Ibiza early in the conflict, but were unable to take control of Mallorca in theBattle 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 theBattle of Menorca.
The cuisine of the islands can be grouped as part of widerCatalan,Spanish orMediterranean cuisines. It features much pastry, cheese, wine, pork and seafood.Sobrassada is a local pork sausage.Lobster stew (so-calledcaldereta) fromMenorca, is one of their most sought after dishes.[41]Mayonnaise is said to originate from the Menorcan city ofMaó (Mahón)[42] which also producesits own cheese. Local pastries includeEnsaïmada,Flaó andCoca.
BothCatalan andSpanish 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.[43]
Catalan is designated as allengua pròpia, literallyown language in its statute of autonomy. TheBalearic 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.[44] The 2011 census, using slightly different phrasing, reported that 63.4% could fluently speak and 88.5% could understand Catalan.[45]
Other languages, such asEnglish,French,German andItalian, 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.[47]
Population in the Balearic Islands (2021)[48] Insular council (official name in Catalan and equivalent in Spanish)
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.[47]
At the Census of 1 January 2021, the population had increased to 1,183,415 inhabitants.
Each one of the four islands is 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.[51]
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 (namedvéndes in Catalan); eachvénda is grouping several nearby hamlets (casaments) and their immediate surroundings. Thesecasaments 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 theReconquista).
Thegross 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.[56]
The real estate market in Mallorca, which accounts for the majority of property transactions in the Balearic Islands, has shown long-term resilience through major global economic shocks. This stability is driven largely by sustained international demand, cash-rich buyers, and limited housing supply.[57]
In basketball, the islands haven't had much success. Despite thatMenorca Bàsquet became the only Menorcan & Balearic basketball team to be onLiga ACB, having been 5 seasons in total before disbanding in 2012.
Now there are 2 clubs from the Balearic Islands that have been in the second divisionLEB Oro in the last 5 years,CB Bahía San Agustín from Palma de Mallorca, relegated from LEB Oro at the2021-22 LEB Oro season, and Menorca Bàsquet's phoenix club,CB Menorca, who in the2023-24 LEB Oro season made their debut, finishing 12th in the league table and failing to get into promotion play-off spots.
^Plin.; Agathem.; Dion Cass. ap. Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 533; Eustath.
^Williams, George (1854)."Baleares". In Smith, William (ed.).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography: Abacaenum-Hytanis. Little, Brown and Company. p. 373.
^Diod. v. 17, Eustath. ad Dion. 457; Baliareis –Βαλιαρεῖς, Baliarides –Βαλιαρίδες,Steph. B.; Balearides –Βαλεαρίδες,Strabo; Balliarides –Βαλλιαρίδες,Ptol. ii. 6. § 78; Baleariae –Βαλεαρίαι Agathem.
^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.
^Dupuy, Richard Ernest; Dupuy, Trevor Nevitt (1993).The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present. HarperCollins. p. 280.903. Moslem Capture of the Balearic Islands. The Franks were defeated by Isam al-Khawlani
^"Mayonnaise".Andalucia For Holidays. 6 July 2013. Archived fromthe original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved12 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. Retrieved6 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. Retrieved11 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 theNotitia Dignitatum. Provincial administration reformed anddioceses established byDiocletian,c. 293. Permanentpraetorian prefectures established after the death ofConstantine I. Empire permanently partitioned after 395. Exarchates ofRavenna andAfrica established after 584. After massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the remaining provinces were superseded by thetheme system in c. 640–660, although inAsia Minor and parts of Greece they survived under the themes until the early 9th century.
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