Granadilla de Abona is a municipality of Tenerife, located in the south of the island, occupying an area of 155 square kilometers. Its population in 1991 was 17,141. In recent years, the population has greatly increased due to an influx of immigrants, many of them illegal, from Western Sahara, Colombia, Cuba, and other African and Latin American countries.

The municipality extends from the altitudinous center of the island -the mountain of Guajara (2,718 meters) is situated in this municipality- to the Atlantic Ocean. Guajara is the second-highest mountain on the island, after El Teide. The municipality’s landscape, similar to the entire south of the island, is dry and desert-like.

Reina Sofía Airport is located in this municipality, as well as the beachside town of El Médano ("The Sand Dune"), where many important windsurfing competitions are held. La Montaña Roja ("The Red Mountain"), a volcanic cone located in El Médano, is a protected natural preserve, along with five other “espacios naturales,” which comprise 25% of the municipality’s total area. Plans to build an industrial and commercial port in this municipality along a 5-kilometer (3.1 mile) sector along the coast, from Barranco del Río to Montaña Pelada, have been discussed but not implemented, due to concerns about the environmental damage such a development would cause.

History
Abona was the name of a Guanche menceyato, or kingdom, that existed in this region of the island at the time of Spanish conquest in the late fifteenth century. Founded around 1445, Abona was ruled by Atguaxoña, son of Axerax. It extended from the Río de Chasna to Adeje, from the Barranco de Herques, to Güimar. The Spanish toponym of Granadilla does not appear until the end of the sixteenth century, but the settlement of the area by Europeans began at the time of conquest.

The Bay of El Médano was the lost stop for provisions for Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano during the circumnavigation of the world. The expedition's cartographer and translator, Antonio Pigafetta, left this description of the place: "On Tuesday, September 20, in the same year [1519] we departed from the place called Sanlúcar [de Barrameda], heading southwest, and before the end of the month, on the 26th, we arrived at an island that is called Tenerife, at 28 degrees longitude, to acquire meat, water, and firewood. We remained there for three days and a half; later we approached another port on the same island, Monte Rosso [Montaña Roja] by name, lingering there for two days…On Monday, October 3, at midnight, we departed southwards..."

Records indicate that a church existed in the municipality in 1575. A Franciscan convent was founded in February 1665. Granadilla de Abona acquired the status of a municipality in the nineteenth century, and a highway linking it to other parts of the island in the 1930s. Previously, travel to other parts of the island was only possibly by boat, which departed from the seaside towns of El Médano and Los Abrigos.

Related (External) Links:
Offical Website
Google Streetmap
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*Information provided here with is taken, with thanks, from Wikipedia. For a copy of the license for this information, see the GNU Documentation license.