Gran Canaria
One of the main islands of the Canary archipelago
Gran Canaria (UK: , US: ; Spanish: [ɡɾaŋ kaˈnaɾja] ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa. As of 2023 the island had a population of 862,893 that constitutes approximately 40% of the population of the archipelago. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital of the island, is the largest city of the Canary Islands and the ninth-largest city of Spain.
Gran Canaria is located in the Atlantic Ocean in a region known as Macaronesia about 150 kilometres (93 mi) off the northwestern coast of Africa and about 1,350 km (840 mi) from Europe. With an area of 1,560 km2 (600 sq mi) and an altitude of 1,956 m (6,417 ft) at Morro de la Agujereada, Gran Canaria is the third largest island of the archipelago in both area and altitude. Gran Canaria is also the third most populated island in Spain.
History
In antiquity, Gran Canaria was populated by the North African Canarii, who may have arrived as early as 500 BC.
In the medieval period, after over a century of European incursions and attempts at conquest, the island was conquered on 29 April 1483, by the Crown of Castile, under Queen Isabella I. The Canarian queen Abenchara was captured and imprisoned by the Spanish during the conquest. The conquest succeeded after a war that lasted five years, and it was an important step towards the expansion of the unified Spain.
The capital city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was founded on 24 June 1478, under the name "Real de Las Palmas", by Juan Rejón, head of the invading Castilian army. In 1492, Christopher Columbus anchored in the Port of Las Palmas (and spent some time on the island) on his first trip to the Americas.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gran Canaria” as one of the main islands of the Canary archipelago. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as one of the main islands of the Canary archipelago. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178925. VIAF identifies the subject as 127845988. The Library of Congress control number is n80162761. Authority coordinates are 27.959, -15.592. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1483, 1478 and 1492.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gran Canaria” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.