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El Hierro, nicknamed Isla del Meridiano ("The Meridian Island"), is a Spanish island. It is the smallest and furthest south and west of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. It is situated at 27°45' north, 18°00' west.
Description
History
The name of the island is derived from the Guanche language toponym Hero, which by the process of folk-etymology was transformed into "Hierro," meaning "iron" in Spanish, due to its similarity to that word. Thus, Ferro (Latin ferrum, "iron") was and is used as an alternative name for the island. It is the name for the island in other languages, including French, German, and Danish. Pliny the Elder, who used Juba II as his source, names a series of Canary Islands, and it is believed that his Capraria may have been Hierro.
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
Like the rest of the chain, the island is sharply mountainous. It has an area of 278 km².
Maximum high is situated in the middle of the island, in Malpaso, with 1.501 meters high.
Like all the Canary Islands, El Hierro is a tourist destination. It is served by a small airport at Valverde and a ferry terminal, both of which connect to Tenerife.
Flora and Fauna
El Hierro is home to many unique species, such as the El Hierro Giant Lizard (Gallotia simonyi). For more information on the flora and vegetation of the island see www.hierro-flora.de.
Political organization
The island is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It includes 2 municipalities:
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 Valverde town. 10.162 people (2003) live on the island.
The Meridian island
The island 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 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 is the most western position of the Old World and also thought to be exactly 20 degrees west of Paris, 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" west of the Greenwich meridian. But for the geodetic networks of Austria-Hungary and of Germany the value 17° 40' 00" was adopted in the 1920ies, due to a vertical deflection of 13-14" at the fundamental points near Vienna and Berlin.
See also
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.
External links
- El Hierro (Official page, in Spanish)
- Non official information site (Also English)
- Information on flora and vegetation of El Hierro (English, German and Spanish)
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"El Hierro"