Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	El Hierro
Image name	HI Canarias.png
Locator map	ES El Hierro.PNG
Locator map size	225px
Nickname	Isla del Meridiano
Location	Atlantic Ocean
Coordinates
Archipelago	Canary Islands
Area km2	278
Highest mount	Malpaso
Elevation m	1,501
Country	Spain
Country admin divisions title	Autonomous Community
Country admin divisions	Canary Islands
Country admin divisions title 1	Province
Country admin divisions 1	Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Country largest city	Valverde
Country largest city population	5,797
Population	10,162
Population as of	2003
Density km2	37

of Upper Silesia (1746) with Latin message: Longitudines numeratæ à primo Meridiano per Ins[ula] Ferri]]

El Hierro, nicknamed Isla del Meridiano (the "Meridian Island"), is the smallest and farthest south and west of the Canary Islands (an Autonomous Community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a population of 10,162 (2003).

The name

The name El Hierro, although phonetically identical to the Spanish word for 'iron', is generally thought to be derived instead from one of several words in the Guanche language of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants, known as Bimbaches. Juan de Abreu Galindo (in a manuscript translated and published by George Glas in 1764) gives the native name of the island as Esero (or Eseró), meaning 'strong'. According to Abreu Galindo, the Bimbaches, not having iron originally, called the strong metal of the Spanish alternately by their own word for 'strong' and by its Spanish name, hierro, and from there transferred the alternation of names to their island. Richard Henry Major, however, in notes on his translation of Le Canarien, observes that the Guanche word hero or herro, meaning 'cistern', could easily have lapsed into hierro by a process of folk etymology. It is believed that the Bimbaches had to construct cisterns to save fresh rainwater. The Gran diccionario guanche gives the meaning of the Guanche word hero in Spanish as "fuente" ('spring [water source]').

The association with iron is evident in the names of the island in other languages as early as the 18th century: Portuguese Ferro, French l'île de Fer, and Latin Insula Ferri. Some sources, evidently persuaded by the meaning of Spanish hierro, imply that iron is abundant on the island, while others pointedly assert that it is not.

History

The ancient natives of the island, called Bimbaches, were conquered by Jean de Béthencourt –more through the process of negotiation than by military action. Béthencourt had as his ally and negotiator Augeron, brother of the island's native monarch. Augeron had been captured years previously by the Europeans and now served as mediator between the Europeans and the Guanches. In return for control over the island, Béthencourt promised to respect the liberty of the natives, but he eventually broke his promise, selling many of the bimbaches into slavery. Many Frenchmen and Galicians subsequently settled on the island. There was a revolt of the natives against the harsh treatment of the governor Lázaro Vizcaíno, but it was suppressed.

Geography, flora and fauna

In 2000, El Hierro was designated by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, with 60% of its territory protected to preserve its natural and cultural diversity.

Like the rest of the Canary Islands chain, El Hierro is sharply mountainous and volcanic, only one eruption has ever been recorded on the island from the Volcan de Lomo Negro vent in 1793. The eruption lasted a month.

El Hierro is a 278.5 km² island, formed approx 100 million year ago after three successive eruptions, the island emerged from the ocean as a triangle of basaltic dykes topped with a volcanic cone more than 2,000 metres high. With continued activity resulting in the island expanding to have the largest number of volcanoes in the Canaries (over 500 cones, another 300 covered by more recent deposits), together with approximately 70 caves and volcanic galleries, including the Don Justo cave whose collection of channels is over 6km in length. Landslides have reduced the size and height of the island. The current highest point is situated in the middle of the island, in Malpaso, 1501 meters high.

Landslides and tsunami

There is evidence of at least three major landslides that have affected El Hierro in the last few hundred thousand years. The most recent of these was the 'El Golfo' landslide that occurred about 15 thousand years ago, involving collapse of the northern flank of the island. The landslide formed the El Golfo valley and created a debris avalanche with a volume of 150–180 km³. Turbidite deposits related to this landslide have been recognized in drill cores from the Agadir Basin to the north of the Canary Islands. Detailed analysis of these deposits suggests that the slope failure did not occur as a single event but a series of smaller failures over a period of hours or days. Local tsunami are likely to have been triggered by these landslides but no evidence has been found to confirm this.

Recent Seismic activity

The Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands and National Geografic Institute’s seismic monitoring station located in Valverde, detected increase seismic activity beginning noon 17 July 2011. The seismic monitoring network was increased in density from July 21 to allow better detection and location of the seismic events. There was an earthquake swarm with in excess of 400 minor tremors between 20 July and 24 July. , by 27 July a further 320 earthquakes had been recorded. On 25 August there were reports that some horizontal deformation had been detected, but that there was no unusual vertical deformation. At that time, the total number of tremors had exceeded 4000.

Flora and Fauna

El Hierro is home to many unique species, such as the critically endangered El Hierro Giant Lizard (Gallotia simonyi), there is a captive breeding programme, which is allowing its reintroduction. thumb|right|200px

The interior of the island contains thermophilous juniper forest, evergreen woodlands and pine forest.

Tourism & Transportation

Like all of the Canary Islands, El Hierro is a tourist destination. It is served by a small airport, El Hierro Airport at Valverde and a ferry terminal, both of which connect to Tenerife.

Political organization

The island is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and includes three municipalities:

Frontera

Valverde

El Pinar

Valverde is situated in the northeast and Frontera in the southwest, both contain several villages.

The seat of the island government (cabildo insular) is in the town of Valverde, which houses approximately half of the island's population.

The "Meridian Island"

El Hierro was known in European history as the prime meridian in common use outside of the future British Empire. Already in the 2nd century A.D., Ptolemy considered a definition of the zero meridian based on the western-most position of the known world, giving maps with only positive (eastern) longitudes. In the year 1634, France ruled by Louis XIII and Richelieu decided that Ferro's meridian should be used as the reference on maps, since this island was considered the most western position of the Old World. (Flores Island lies further west, but the Azores were not discovered by Europeans until early 15th century, and their identification as part of the Old World is uncertain.) It was thought to be exactly 20 degrees west of the Paris meridian, so indeed the exact position of Ferro was never considered. Old maps (outside of Anglo-America) often have a common grid with Paris degrees at the top and Ferro degrees offset by 20 at the bottom. Louis Feuillée also worked on this problem in 1724.

It was later found that the actual island of El Hierro itself is in fact 20° 23' 9" west of Paris, but the Ferro meridian was still defined as 20 degrees west of Paris.

According to the European longitude adjustment of Theodor Albrecht (ca. 1890) the Ferro meridian is 17° 39' 46.02" west of the Greenwich meridian. But for the geodetic networks of Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia, the value 17° 40' 00" was adopted in the 1920s, not only for practical reasons but also as it was discovered that the longitude of the Berlin (Rauenberg) fundamental point was miscalculated by 13.39". For the geodetic networks of Hungary and Yugoslavia, the value of Albrecht was used prior to the switch to the Greenwich prime meridian.

Energy

According to the Ministry for Industry, Tourism and Commerce, El Hierro will become the first island in the world to be energy self-sufficient. This will be achieved through a €54 million project combining a greater than 11 megawatt wind farm and two hydroelectric projects.

The project, created by the local Gorona del Viento El Hierro consortium with financial aid from the European Union, will construct five wind turbines capable of producing 11.5 megawatts of wind power to supply electricity for approximately 11,000 residents, an additional number of tourists, and three water desalination facilities. The hybrid wind/pumped hydro storage system will store surplus wind power by pumping water up 700 meters (approximately 2,300 feet) to fill the crater of an extinct volcano. When winds are calm or when demand exceeds supply, water will be released from the crater to generate 11.3 MW of electricity, filling an artificial basin created at the bottom of the extinct volcano. Water in the lower basin is then pumped back up again to the upper reservoir when there is excess wind power.

The closed-loop hybrid wind/hydro system, to be tested by the end of 2011, is expected to save approximately US$4M per year (calculated with January 2011 oil prices) currently spent on about 40,000 barrels of crude oil imported annually, and will make the island completely self-sufficient for electrical energy.

El Hierro in literature

The island of Hierro is mentioned in Umberto Eco's novel "The Island of the Day Before" ("L'isola del giorno prima", 1994), a novel about a 17th century Italian nobleman trapped on an island on the International Date Line.

See also

List of volcanoes in Spain

Prime meridian

Notes

External links

El Hierro - official tourism website of the Canary Islands

Information on flora and vegetation of El Hierro

Watch from above El Hierro points of interests and add your preferred ones (map provided by Google)

Info-Portal of El Hierro (Spanish, English, German)

Information about El Hierro (Spanish, English, German)

Category:Islands of the Canary Islands Category:Volcanoes of the Canary Islands Category:Lines of longitude Category:Biosphere reserves of Spain

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