Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name comes from the Latin Canariae Insulae, meaning Islands of the Dogs. The historian Pliny the Elder reported that the island of Canaria contained vast multitudes of very large dogs. The canary bird was named after the islands, not the other way around.
The Guanches were the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands, originally called by that name only on Tenerife. Linguistic, genetic, and archaeological evidence shows they arrived at least 2,000 years ago, sharing a common origin with the Amazigh peoples of the nearby North African coast. A 2017 genome-wide study confirmed their North African Berber origin.
Spain completed the conquest in 1496, when Alonso Fernandez de Lugo finally subdued Tenerife and La Palma. The conquest began in 1402 with the French expedition of Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de la Salle to Lanzarote, making the full process span nearly a century.
Mount Teide is a volcano on Tenerife standing 3,715 metres tall, making it the highest peak in Spain. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, it ranks as the third tallest volcano on Earth. Teide National Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 and receives over 2.8 million visitors each year.
The Canary Islands received over 16.2 million visitors in 2023. Tenerife was the most visited island with more than 6.4 million arrivals, followed by Gran Canaria with more than 4.2 million. Tourism accounts for roughly 32% of the islands' GDP.
The dual-capital arrangement was established by decree in 1927, when the Province of Canary Islands was split into two provinces: Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The Statute of Autonomy of 1982 formally fixed this arrangement, making the Canary Islands the only autonomous community in Spain with two official capitals.