GEOGRAPHICAL DATA:

Surface: 11,36 square kilometers.

1,60% of the island of La Palma.

Altitude: 60 meters (municipal capital). 350 meters (Marina). 10 meters (Puerto and Tarajal).

Distance by highway: 37 kilometers to Santa Cruz de La Palma.

"TheirHighness the Catholic Kings Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, for their real identification sent in Burgos November 15 of 1496, they gave be able to the same Adelantado gentleman in order to distribute among the conquerors and residents of their lands, mounts and waters, and by virtue of that real faculty, he gave his nephew Juan Fernández Señorino de Lugo, Lieutenant Governor of this same island, that accompanied him to his conquest, the Valle de Tazacorte, that had begun to cultivate and it had a genius for sugar, houses, etc. with all their lands and waters from La Caldera until the sea and port of saying valley, according to writing granted in 8 of July of 1502 for in the face of Fernández de Gálvez, scribe public."

- " The tazacorteño pre-Hispanic, prior to the conquest, was belonging to the race guanche in full neolithic culture. Doing not know the metals, were covered with skins and necklaces, was using wood lances and was living in natural caves or ace cabins cover of vegetables " -. This description appears in several publications as summary of the years prior to the conquest of the island of La Palma.

A 29 of September, that of year 1492, few dates before of the discovery of Columbus, two ships and a transportation frigate, to the command of Fernández de Lugo, arrive at Tazacorte. Compose the expedition nine hundred men among canary and European. The Church was celebrating the festivity of San Miguel.

The king Tazo succumbs in the defense of his kingdom and the monk Frutuoso wrote: Won this place of Tazacorte called before court of the king Tazo, either by the name of the king already by workmanship of the place, or both things, the Spanish gave to it the name that has.

It is lifted hermitage to San Miguel, celebrating the liturgical festivity and starts the accession and the sugar cane production by the wits.

This hermitage will not arrive to parish but many years after: in 1922. And the constitution of Tazacorte as independent municipality, even though requested from 1898, no be at the point 1925, being by so much the youngest municipality of the islands.

The municipality deserves be visited lock, stock and barrel since beautiful preserve mansions and other characteristic constructions of the insular architecture.

The parochial church of San Miguel Arcángel as well as the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Las Angustias have suffered important modifications on their initial constructions.

The parish was the first shrine of the Island and ordered it to build by the first Adelantado. It is intimately it related to the Martyrs of Tazacorte, since here celebrated the eucharist in eves of their martyrdom in hands of the Huguenots.

Both shrines keep in their interior interesting objects of art.

The economy of this municipality is based fundamentally on the agriculture. And this has been thus from its first moments, in which was considered as an area of great fecundity. The own Carlos I conceded these lands to his German bankers, the Welser, as payment of his obligations.

The first cultivation to which was consecrated was the sugar cane that, in spite its general decadence, was preserved until the century past XIX. The statistics of Escolar and Serrano indicate for that date a yet important production.

The sugar cane gives step to the bananas, that they have gone occupying greater surfaces, thanks above all the possibilities of irrigable. Even it has been brought land of other points in order to power to devote larger extensions to its cultivate.

The fishing is the other economic activity of the municipality, though in much smaller scale that the agriculture.

This municipality, the smaller superficial extension of the Island, remains clearly nailed in the west palmero. Its limits continue rectilinear outlines, that separate it from Los Llanos, by the south and east. Departing toward the interior, from the surroundings of Port Naos, leaves a line that is bent in angle, to rise including the mountains of Todoque and La Laguna. Border the mountain of Argual, and the top of the same name, leaving alone a narrow corridor between this and the coast, then cross the ravine of Las Angustias. Already by the north, the hillside of the straight margin of this riverbed serves as boundary with Tijarafe.

A long steep section defines the western coastal sector, where also appears in its extreme south, a terrace that corresponds to the lavas of the San Juan's volcano (1949), and that is seen flanked by the beaches New and of The Bulb.

Occupy, since, the place, the inferior section of the called Valle de Aridane. In this way, they remain within the municipal demarcation the mountains of Todoque (349 meters) and La Laguna (342 meters), that are corresponded to a volcanoes alignment of NW to SE, the nearest to the coast of the existing in this wide west hillside palmero. This coastal section, constitutes a band, that descends gently toward the sea, where is short by a cliff.

Northward, the outlet of the ravine of Las Angustias, drainage of La Caldera de Taburiente, supposes a slit opened by the waters, in the great alluvions bulk dragged by this riverbed and deposited in this field. The conditions of the place have caused that historically serves of port. In this north sector, also appear the incisions made by the ravines Hondo and Tenisca. Among the municipal capital and the mountain of La Laguna, would run the lavas of the historical eruption of the Montaña Quemada's volcano (1430-1440). In the south of the municipality, the lavas of the historical eruption of San Juan, in 1949 made to earn to the sea a surface of some two square kilometers, place known for The Hoyas. So much these spaces, as good part of the municipal term, is found covered by a green mantle of banana trees, that solely is seen interrupted by the grouped population.

Precisely the fact of be found lee of the trade winds, and scarce altitude, determines that the climatic characteristics come defined by the high sunstroke, soft and reduced temperature rainfalls. This has carried to the secular agrarian utilization of this space, devoted finally to the principal export cultivation of the Island: the banana. In the scarce free places of cultivation, is located a substitution vegetation, own of the floor basal: tabaibas and cardones.

The mountains of Todoque and La Laguna, suppose two of the four volcanic cones, aligned of NW to SE, and distributed among Tazacorte and Los Llanos, that constitute a designated natural space: Volcanic cones of Los Llanos. Emphasize these eruptive centers, well preserved, in the middle of a space totally transformed by the human activity. In the straight margin of the ravine of Las Angustias, is found a small part of a protected area much greater and that carries this denomination. Place of accumulation of the important volume of started and dragged materials, from La Caldera de Taburiente.

Coinciding with the holiday of San Miguel Arcangel (29 of September), takes place in Tazacorte the peculiar spectacle of the Horses Fufos. Built of canes and papers of colorines, they are carried by some horsemans that dance to are of the music band. Created in the years twenty of this century, by a migratory returned of Cuba, suppose an original folkloric demonstration, constituted by a multicolored horses score and a giraffe that leads them. Long ago also leave to celebrate other festive events.

The port of Tazacorte gather all a series of activities related to the world of the sea. It is also place where is found good fresh fish.

16 of July: Nuestra Señora del Carmen and 29 of September, San Miguel Arcángel.