San Cristóbal de La Laguna (commonly known as La Laguna) is a city and municipality in the northern part of the island of Tenerife in the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the Canary Islands (Spain). The city is third-most populous city of the archipelago and second-most populous city of the island. It is a suburban area of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

La Laguna historical center was declared World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1999. Starting in 2003 the municipality started an ambitious Urban Plan to renew this area, that was carried out by the firm AUC S.L. (Arquitectura Urbanismo y Cooperación). The city was the ancient capital of the Canary Islands.

It is home to the University of La Laguna which is home to 30,000 students. La Laguna is considered to be the cultural capital of the Canary Islands. Also there is in the habit of being calling the “City of the Anticipated ones”, for having been the first university city of the archipelago.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the capital of the island and the seat of the island council (cabildo insular).

The city is capital of the autonomous community of Canary Islands (shared with Las Palmas), sharing governmental institutions such as Presidency and ministries.

Santa Cruz is the second largest city and metropolitan area of the European Union outside Europe. Located in northeast quadrant of Tenerife, about 210 kilometres (130 mi) off the northwestern coast of Africa within the Atlantic Ocean.

Between the 1833 territorial division of Spain and 1927 Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the sole capital of the Canary Islands, until 1927 when a decree ordered that the capital of the Canary Islands be shared, as it remains at present. The port is of great importance and is the communications hub between Europe, Africa and Americas, with cruise ships arriving from many nations. The city is the nerve center on domestic and inter-island communications in the Canary Islands.

Tenerife  is the largest and most populous of the seven Canary Islands with a land area of 2,034.38 km² (785.47 mi2) and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands, making it the most populated island of Spain. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the most of any Canary Islands. Tenerife hosts one of the world’s largest carnivals and the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is attempting to become a World Heritage Site. Tenerife is serviced by two airports, Tenerife North Airport and Tenerife South Airport, and is the tourism and economic centre of the archipelago.

One of the most exciting parts of my astrobiology research is working out how to search for evidence of past Martian life – signs of ancient biology that may have fallen extinct hundreds of millions of years ago.

One promising technique for finding these “biosignatures” – which could be pockets of organic molecules or even microbial life – is to entice them to glow in the dark using an ultraviolet laser mounted on a robotic probe. A camera on the probe would then detect the…
Lewis Dartnell, planetary science postdoc. >>> Read more

Cruise ship arrivals are becoming huge business for Spanish ports and both Santa Cruz and Las Palmas on Gran Canaria are helping to lead the way.

The two ports were placed third and fourth in Europe for the most active markets during 2010, with a total of 1.3 million passengers, an increase of 13.7% with respect to 2009.
Last year, the Spanish ports notched up a record when they welcomed more than seven million cruise ship passengers.

The Canary Islands, Barcelona, the Balearics, Málaga, Valencia and Vigo were the main locations, with the arrivals representing 12.5% of the Spanish tourist sector (52.6 million international tourists visited Spain during 2010).

The ports in the archipelago are busy throughout the year but particularly so during the autumn and winter months. They are the third most active market in Europe, with a total of 1,358,767 passengers, an increase of 13.7% with respect to 2009 (1,19,536 passengers). Santa Cruz received 740,022 passengers last year, 54.46% of the total for the islands and 26.97% more than in 2009.

Only Barcelona with 2.3 million cruise passengers and the Balearics with 1.5 million surpass the numbers received at the port in Santa Cruz. Las Palmas had 618,745 arrivals, up 1.15% on 2009 and 45.53% of the 1.3 million passengers who berthed in the Canary Islands in 2010. This places it fourth in the traffic list. In 2009, Las Palmas (611,701 passengers) surpassed Santa Cruz de Tenerife (582,835 passengers).
In one decade, cruise passengers in the Spanish ports has tripled from two million to 7,132,505 people. The biggest rise was in 2010 when the figure went up 17.7% to 7.12 million.
Figures show that the average cruise ship passenger spends between 50 euros and 75 euros a day at stopping off points and between 200 and 300 euros if the liner uses the port as its base.

Oceana, the international marine conservation organisation, presented a proposal to protect 15% of the marine areas in the Spanish waters of the Canary Islands. The areas pointed out by Oceana in its report, as part of the project developed with support from the Fundación Biodiversidad, the Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, at up to roughly 74,000 km2. This addition, along with the archipelago’s existing network of marine areas, would mean protecting an area that is 100 times larger than the current 0.15%  and comply with the measures established by international legislation.

The initiative was presented at the Fundación Biodiversidad headquarters. “Oceana’s proposal addresses EU requirements,” points out Ricardo Aguilar, director of research for Oceana Europe. “After evaluating the Natura 2000 Network in the Canary Islands, the European Commission determined that the current network of marine areas does not guarantee protection for the habitats and species present in the Canary Islands. Because the Habitats Directive calls for their protection, the network should be expanded.”

More info: http://eu.oceana.org

Airline compaines have scheduled more than 1.1 million extra seats for the Canary Islands between April and August this year (2011). Tenerife is leading the increase, given that companies have reserved 3.6 million seats (mostly to the Reina Sofia airport in the south), this is 400,000 more seats than in 2010.

Gran Canaria ranks second place with 2.7 million seats (230,000 more than last summer, a growth of 9.4%) followed by Lanzarote, with 1.7 million (200,000 new seats, an increase of 13%), Fuerteventura, with 1.5 million (242 more, 19%), and La Palma, with about 116,000 seats (7,900 additional compared to 2010, a difference of 7.3%).

The airlines will offer a total of 12.5 million seats, compared to 11.4 million in 2010. In keeping with the cautious optimism that the authorities are transmitting, the head of the regional government, Paulino Rivero, predicted that the Canary Islands will close 2011 with 12 million tourists visiting the islands.

The great weather of the Canary Island is bound to a privileged geographical position closer to the Tropic of Cancer and under a regime of trade winds.

During the last winter the average temperature ranged from 22º C in Tenerife South and 17º C in the northern region.

More info: http://www.todotenerife.es