Mallorca is a Spanish island in the western Mediterranean, about 170
kilometers from the Spanish mainland near Barcelona.
Mallorca
is the largest island of the Balearic group, consisting of the
Gymnesians and the Pitiuses, which forms an autonomous community
within the Spanish state. Mallorca is home to the capital of the
Balearic Islands, Palma. Official languages are Catalan and Spanish.
In addition, Mallorca is also the largest island belonging to Spain
and the seventh largest Mediterranean island.
Mallorca is located east of mainland Spain between 39°15′40″ and
39°57′40″ north latitude and 2°19′38″ and 3°28′42″ east longitude. The
island has a maximum east-west extent of 98 kilometers and a north-south
extent of 78 kilometers. It is 3,603.7155 km², including smaller
offshore islands 3,622.5448 km². Mallorca has a coastline of more than
550 kilometers in length. The administrative area of Mallorca includes
the main island, the Cabrera archipelago (18.36 km²) and the island of
Sa Dragonera (2.88 km²).
Serra de Tramuntana
The Serra de
Tramuntana is a mountain range up to 15 kilometers wide with 11 peaks
over 1000 meters high, which runs parallel to the north-west coast. The
mountains stretch over 90 kilometers from the island of Sa Dragonera in
the south-west to Cap Formentor in the north. The highest point in the
middle of the mountain range is the Puig Major at 1445 meters. On the
north-western slope of the mountains there are steep and rocky coastal
areas with only small bays and rocky beaches. The port de Sóller harbor
was created in the only larger bay.
The Serra de Tramuntana is
named after the cold north and west Tramuntana winds. Its mountain
ranges form a climatic divide with the lower parts of the island, which
thus enjoys milder winters but generally less rainy days. In the
mountains, the uphill rain ensures more frequent and heavier
precipitation than in the other island regions.
On the side
slopes of the mountains with their torrents, the torrents, fertile
valleys have formed, on whose debris cones orange and lemon trees grow
in the area around Sóller. Tomatoes, beans and grapes are grown on
terraced slopes (Estellencs, Banyalbufar, Deià, Valldemossa). The region
of the Serra de Tramuntana is populated very differently. Overall, the
population is 104,904 (as of 2007), with the largest communities Calvià
and Pollença located at the southern and northern ends of the mountains.
Raiguer
Adjacent to the Serra de Tramuntana, the Es Raiguer
region lies on the south-eastern slope of the mountain range between the
peninsula of La Victoria and the urban region of the capital, Palma. It
is a transition zone from the mountains to the Es Plà plain in the
middle of Mallorca. There is plenty of water here, but little flat,
cultivable terrain.
The Raiguer region and in particular the city
of Inca are known as the center of shoe and leather crafts in Mallorca.
123,046 inhabitants live in the region (as of 2007) and it also has a
kind of center with Inca, although the municipality of Marratxi, as a
suburb of Palma, has slightly more inhabitants. The third largest
municipality is the city of Alcúdia on the bay on the north coast that
is named after it.
Pla de Mallorca
In the central part of
Mallorca is the Pla de Mallorca or Es Pla plain, which is only
interrupted by smaller mountain ranges. The highest point is the 542
meter high table mountain Puig de Randa on the border to the Migjorn.
Most of the island's agricultural products for daily use, such as
potatoes, rice, corn and vegetables, come from the Es Pla region. In
addition, wine is grown and there are a variety of almond tree
plantations. With its extensive fields, Es Pla is also known as the
granary of Mallorca. Up to four harvests a year are possible in the
shelter of the mountains of the north-west from the wintry north winds.
However, the interior of the island is also the hottest part of Mallorca
in summer.
With 51,636 people (as of 2007), the fewest
inhabitants of the six comarques of Mallorca live in the Pla de
Mallorca. There is also no central place in the region. The tourist
resort of Can Picafort on the Bay of Alcúdia in the municipality of
Santa Margalida is now the most populous. The bay in the north of
Mallorca has miles of sandy beaches, the main destination for most
holidaymakers. Tourism is also becoming increasingly important in Es Pla
compared to agriculture. In the interior of Mallorca, agritourism is
increasingly being used, holidays in the countryside in the shade of the
many windmills.
Relevant
Llevant (German: East) refers to the
eastern and north-eastern landscape region of Mallorca. It is crossed by
the Serres de Llevant, a mountain range much lower than the Serra de
Tramuntana in the west. Here there are only three peaks over 500 meters
high. The highest is at 561 meters the Puig Morei (also Puig d'en Morell
or Talaia Freda) in the massif of Artà (Massis d'Artà). The Serres de
Llevant stretch from south to north, rising a little and extending north
to the entire peninsula of Artà.
The mountains to the east are
less closed than the Serra de Tramuntana. At Manacor there is a kind of
culvert from the interior of the island to the east coast. There, many
small natural harbors and sandy beaches line up like a string of pearls
on the otherwise rocky coast. Also on the coast are the three natural
caves Coves del Drac, Coves dels Hams and Coves d’Artà. With the Cova de
sa Gleda - Camp des Pou near the east coast near Manacor, which is not
open to the public, Mallorca has the longest underwater cave in Europe.
The widest beaches are offered by Cala Millor on Badia de Son Servera,
Sa Coma on Cala Moreia and Cala Rajada with Cala Agulla, all of which
are tourist strongholds today. On the other hand, things are quieter on
the north-west side of the mountain range near Colònia de Sant Pere and
its natural beach S'Arenal de sa Canova as well as the nature-protected
bays on the north-east coast.
Main town of the Llevant is
Manacor. With 37,963 people (as of 2007), more than half of the 75,137
inhabitants of the region live here. Despite this, the city of Manacor,
which is home to 67% of the residents of the municipality, is
economically more connected to the inland. It is a center of the faux
pearl (Majorcan imitation pearls) and furniture industry. The towns
along the coast from Cala Ratjada to Cales de Mallorca, on the other
hand, have dedicated themselves to tourism, while the townships away
from the sea benefit in terms of tranquility.
migjorn
Migjorn
is basically the southern continuation of the Plà de Mallorca plain.
Despite the rather flat character of the region, the southernmost
landscape of Mallorca also has an elevation of over 500 meters above sea
level. The monastery of Santuari de Sant Salvador is located on the 509
meter high Puig Sant Salvador in the municipality of Felanitx. The
mountain is the highest elevation in the southern range of the Serra de
Llevant.
With the town of Campos, Migjorn has a center with a
more rural character. Agriculture still plays an important role here
today. A special feature are the caper bushes cultivated around the
village. The former port of Campos, Colònia de Sant Jordi, forms a
contrast to this: next to the six-kilometre-long beach of Es Trenc, a
tourist center with over 3000 guest beds was built here. The building
ruins on the other side of Es Trenc in the settlement of ses Covetes
testify to the fact that the wild construction has now been stopped. A
court ordered the demolition of the half-completed houses erected here
next to the beach without a permit.
The Migjorn coastline
stretches from S'Arenal in the west, belonging to the municipality of
Llucmajor, to Portocolom, in the municipality of Felanitx. Every
community in the region, which has a population of 75,899 (as of 2007),
has a share of the coast. On this flat rocky sections alternate with
sandy bays. Some parts of the coast, especially on the southern cape,
the Cap de ses Salines, are difficult to access. Private landowners have
closed the passage for vehicles here, also for reasons of nature
conservation.
Palma
In the southwest of Mallorca opens the
large bay of Palma, which is the ancient capital of the former Kingdom
of Mallorca and the current political and economic center of the
Autonomous Region of the Balearic Islands. Palma is a Roman foundation
from the time the island was occupied by the Roman Empire in 123 BC.
Today 401,270 people (as of 2009) live in the city, which is almost half
(46.5%) of the inhabitants of Mallorca. A hundred years ago there were
only 67,544 residents (year 1910).
Since the Palma region only
includes the city or municipal area, it is the smallest on the island in
terms of area, but has the highest population density. It borders the
Serra de Tramuntana region to the west, Raiguer to the north, Plà de
Mallorca to the northeast and Migjorn to the southeast.
To the
south of Mallorca lies the rocky island archipelago around Cabrera, now
a marine and land national park, and to the southwest is the island of
Sa Dragonera, which has also been declared a nature reserve by the
Mallorca Island Council. More broadly, Cabrera is a southern
continuation of the Migjorn, but administered by the capital, Palma. Sa
Dragonera forms the south-western foothills of the Serra de Tramuntana.
Like the other Balearic Islands, Majorca belongs geologically to the
Andalusian Fold Mountains as an extension of the Betic Cordillera. This
massif of Alpine origin consists of rocky materials deposited as
sediments in the Tethys Sea during the Mesozoic. Because of this marine
origin, the rock is calcareous and contains many fossils. The reason for
the unfolding of the Betic Cordillera as well as the Mallorcan mountains
is the continental drift, in which the African plate has been pushing
under the Eurasian plate for more than 100 million years (subduction).
Tectonic movements led to different uplift and subsidence zones in the
Younger Tertiary, which is why the connection to the mainland is broken
at the current sea level.
The limestone rocks that are
predominant throughout Mallorca are partially easily soluble in water,
which led to karstification and resulted in strong scouring and solution
weathering in the area of the rocky coasts. In addition to limestone,
dolomite in particular occurs in the mountainous regions of Mallorca,
the Serra de Tramuntana and the Serres de Llevant. In addition, the
Serres de Llevant also contain marl, which means faster erosion for the
eastern archipelago, so that today this mountain range is much lower
than the Serra de Tramuntana in the north-west. Marl is limestone with a
high proportion of clay minerals. The eroded material was washed into
the sea or deposited in the interior of the Plà de Mallorca, light marl
in the north-east of the island and ferruginous clay in the center of
Mallorca, which gives the soil its characteristic reddish colour.
Mountains, valleys, bodies of water
The island is framed by two
mountain ranges, the less spectacular Serres de Llevant to the east and
the well-known, largely uninhabited Serra de Tramuntana to the
north-west, home to the island's highest mountains, eleven of which are
over 1000 meters above sea level. In the Serres de Llevant, on the other
hand, there are only three peaks over 500 meters. Outside of the two
mountain ranges, only the Puig de Randa reaches this height at 540
meters in Es Plà in the middle of the island.
climate
Mallorca
has a temperate subtropical climate with an average of 7.9 hours of
sunshine per day and average rainfall (1400 millimeters in the north,
400 millimeters in the south).
Due to the island location, the
short winters are mild and damp. In rare cases, however, it can also
snow, especially in the mountains. In the summer months, on the other
hand, it hardly rains. The temperatures in the interior of the island
can then rise to over 40 °C.
From the end of August, short heavy
rains accompanied by storms and thunderstorms are possible, which means
that October is statistically the wettest month of the year. This can
lead to local flooding if the torrents can no longer absorb the water
and drain it into the sea.
From the end of December to January,
windless, mild weather conditions, the so-called calmes, are common. The
small summers already lead to the almond blossom in January, which gives
the island a completely different appearance in contrast to the dry
landscape in summer.
Resident
Mallorca has 896,038 registered residents (as of 2019),
of which 407,648 live in the capital Palma. The next largest
municipalities are Calvià (51,114), Manacor (40,831), Llucmajor
(36,994), Marratxi (34,583), Inca (30,066), Alcúdia (19,586), Felanitx
(18,388), Pollença (16,191) and Sóller (14,150). The proportion of
foreigners in the population in 2012 was 185,824 people, around 21.2%.
In addition to 31,025 Germans (3.54%), 18,142 Moroccans (2.07%) and
16,163 Britons (1.84%) were registered on the island. Larger groups of
immigrants from South America come from Argentina and Ecuador. The local
population is called Mallorcans.
Languages
Official languages
in the Balearic Islands are Catalan and Spanish (Castilian). The
Mallorquin (mallorquí) spoken in Mallorca is a dialect of the Catalan
language and is part of the Balearic or island Catalan along with
Menorcan and Ibicencan. The latter, like Central and Northern Catalan,
belongs to the East Catalan dialect group. After the conquest of the
island by James I in the course of the Reconquista of the Crown of
Aragon, Catalan prevailed in Mallorca from 1229. The Mallorcan Ramon
Llull (Latin Raimundus Lullus) became the founder of Catalan literature
in the second half of the 13th century. Among other things, the relative
uniformity of the Catalan script is based on this literary tradition.
After the unification of Spain in the early 16th century, the
language of the more densely populated and economically stronger Castile
came to dominate within the state and Catalan declined to a mere spoken
idiom. This was reinforced in the centralized Spanish state from the
beginning of the 18th century, when Castilian (castellano) as Spanish
(español) became the official language and the mandatory language of
instruction. The period of the so-called decadència was followed by the
renaissance of the literary language of Catalan, known as the
renaixença, in the 19th century, mainly in Catalonia, but rarely in
Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The decade of the decade and the
suppression of Catalan during the Franco dictatorship led to a loss of
awareness of linguistic unity in Mallorca, so that in many cases
Mallorcan was no longer perceived as part of the Catalan language.
Since 1983, Catalan has been the official language on Mallorca
alongside Spanish (Castilian) due to the Statute of Autonomy of the
Balearic Islands. On April 29, 1986, the Law on Linguistic Normalization
(Llei de normalització lingüística de les Illes Balears) came into
force, which was intended to strengthen the use of Catalan over Spanish.
Since many immigrants from the Spanish mainland live in Mallorca, there
are always conflicts regarding the preference for Catalan or Spanish,
especially in school politics. The names of the Mallorcan dialect have
meanwhile established themselves for the place names, even if not
exclusively and comprehensively. So you will still find different
information signs, from Mallorcan to standard Catalan to
Spanish/Castilian.
In the tourist centers of the island, the
language of the largest group of tourists (usually German or English) is
spoken for the most part. Some communities now also have a high
proportion of foreign-language residents. The municipalities with the
highest percentage of German immigrants (registered residents) in the
total population are Andratx (15.1%), Capdepera (13.8%), Santanyí
(12.9%) and Sant Llorenç des Cardassar (11.1% ).