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Comunidad Autónoma de las
Islas Baleares
Comunitat Autònoma de les
Illes Balears

Flag Coat of Arms
Capital	Palma
Official languages	Catalan and Spanish
Area  – Total  – % of Spain	Ranked 17th 4,992 km²  1.0%
Population  – Total (2005)  – % of Spain  – Density	Ranked 14th  983,131  2.2%  196.94/km²
Demonym  – English  – Catalan  – Spanish	Balearic Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Statute of Autonomy	March 1, 1983
ISO 3166-2	IB
Parliamentary representation  Congress seats  Senate seats	8  5
President	Jaume Matas Palou (PP)
Govern de les Illes Balears

The Balearic Islands /ˈbeɪ̯lɪˌæɹɪk ˈaɪ̯ləndz/ (Template:Lang-ca /ˈiʎəz bəɫəˈaː(r)s/, Template:Lang-es, /ˈis·las·ba·leˈaː·res/, Greek: Gymnesiae – Template:Polytonic, Template:Polytonic, Diod. v. 17, Eustath. ad Dion. 457; Template:Polytonic, Template:Polytonic, Steph. B.; Template:Polytonic, Strabo; Template:Polytonic, Ptol. ii. 6. § 78; Template:Polytonic, Agathem., Template:Lang-la) are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the coast of Spain. They form one of the Autonomous Communities of Spain, the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands. The Community's capital city is Palma de Mallorca. Its only province is also called Illes Balears. The official languages are Catalan and Spanish. The Catalan name Illes Balears is the official one.

Etymology

There are various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands – Gymnasiae and Baleares. Two survive in classical sources.

The nakedness of the inhabitants, according to one account, led the islands to be called Gymnesiae (gymnos means naked in Greek).

The Greek and Roman writers generally derive the name of the people from their skill as slingers (Template:Polytonic, from Template:Polytonic); but Strabo assigns to the name a Phoenician origin, observing that it was the Phoenician equivalent for the Greek Template:Polytonic, that is, light-armed soldiers. (Strab. xiv. p. 654.) Though his explanation may be wrong, his main fact is probably right. The root BAL points to a Phoenician origin; perhaps the islands were sacred to the deity of that name; and the accidental resemblance to the Greek root ΒΑΛ (in Template:Polytonic), coupled with the occupation of the people, would be quite a sufficient foundation for the usual Greek practice of assimilating the name to their own language. That it was not, however, Greek at first, may be inferred with great probability from the fact that the common Greek name of the islands is not Template:Polytonic, but Template:Polytonic, the former being the name used by the natives, as well as by the Carthaginians and Romans. (Plin.; Agathem.; Dion Cass. ap. Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 533; Eustath.) The latter name, of which two fancied etymologies have been already referred to, is probably derived from the light equipment of the Balearic troops (Template:Polytonic). (Strab. xiv. p. 654; Plin. l. c.)

Geography, Politics and Culture

The Balearic Islands are one of the Catalan-speaking territories designed by the cultural term of Catalan Countries. The main islands are Majorca (Mallorca), Minorca (Menorca), Ibiza (Eivissa), and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations. Among the minor islands is Cabrera, which is the location of the Parc Nacional de l'Arxipèlag de Cabrera. Majorca and Minorca are the Balearic Islands proper, while the other islands are included in the appelation as part of the Autonomous Community. The islands can be further grouped, with Majorca, Minorca, and Cabrera as the Gymnesian Islands, and Ibiza and Formentera as the Pine Islands.

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History of the Archipelago

Ancient history

Of the earliest inhabitants of the islands, we have scant history but many legends. Among the various traditions respecting their population, the story, preserved by Lycophron, that certain shipwrecked Boeotians were cast naked on the islands, which were therefore called Gymnesiae (Template:Polytonic, Template:Polytonic), was evidently invented to account for the name. There is also a tradition that the islands were colonized from Rhodes after the Trojan war (Strab. xiv. p. 654: the Rhodians, like the Baleares, were celebrated slingers: Sil. Ital. iii. 364, 365:

• Jam cui Tlepolemus sator, et cui Lindus origo, Funda bella ferens Balearis et alite plumbo.

At all events, the islands had a very mixed population, of whose habits several strange stories are told: that they went naked, or clothed only in sheep-skins — whence the name of the islands (an instance of folk etymology) — until the Phoenicians clothed them with broad-bordered tunics (Strabo); others make them naked only in the heat of summer. Other legends hold that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that they were remarkable for their love of women, and, when any were taken captive by pirates, they would give three or four men as the ransom for one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, and forbade the importation of the precious metals, so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money. Their marriage and funeral customs, peculiar to Roman observers, are related by Diodorus (v. 18).

There may have been an Iberian element to the populations, as Dion Cassius preserves a gloss of the Iberian name of the islands: Template:Polytonic.

In ancient times, the islanders of the Gymnesian Islands constructed talayots, and were famous for their skill with the sling. As slingers they served, as mercenaries, first under the Carthaginians, and afterwards under the Romans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, and a javelin burnt at the end, and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head (Strabo p. 168; Eustath.), or, as others tell us, one round the head, one round the body, and one in the hand. (Diodorus) The three slings were of different lengths, for stones of different sizes; the largest they hurled with as much force as if it were flung from a catapult; and they seldom missed their mark. To this exercise they were trained from infancy, in order to earn their livelihood as mercenary soldiers. It is said that the mothers only allowed their children to eat bread when they had struck it off a post with the sling. (Strabo; Diod.; Flor. iii. 8; Tzetz. ad Lycophr.)

The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times (Strabo iii. pp. 167, 168); a remarkable trace of their colonization is preserved in the town of Mago (Mahon in Minorca). After the fall of Carthage, the islands seem to have been virtually independent. Notwithstanding their celebrity in war, the people were generally very quiet and inoffensive. (Strabo; but Florus gives them a worse character, iii. 8.) The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by Q. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC. (Livy Epit. Ix.; Freinsh. Supp. lx. 37; Florus, Strabo ll. cc.) Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia. (Strabo, Mela, Pliny the Elder) The islands belonged, under the Roman Empire, to the conventus of Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena), in the province of Hispania Tarraconensis, of which province they formed, the fourth district, under the government of a praefectus pro legato. An inscription of the time of Nero mentions the PRAEF. PRAE LEGATO INSULAR. BALIARUM. (Orelli, No. 732, who, with Muratori, reads pro for prae.) They were afterwards made a separate province, probably in the division of the empire under Constantine. (Notitia Dignitatum Occid. c. xx. vol. ii. p. 466, Böcking.)

The two largest islands (the Balearic Islands, in their historical sense) had numerous excellent harbours, though rocky at their mouth, and requiring care in entering them (Strabo, Eustath.; Port Mahon is one of the finest harbours in the world). Both were extremely fertile in all produce, except wine and olive oil. (Aristot. de Mir. Ausc. 89; Diodorus, but Pliny praises their wine as well as their corn, xiv. 6. s. 8, xviii. 7. s. 12: the two writers are speaking, in fact, of different periods.) They were celebrated for their cattle, especially for the mules of the lesser island; they had an immense number of rabbits, and were free from all venomous reptiles. (Strabo, Mela; Pliny l. c., viii. 58. s. 83, xxxv. 19. s. 59; Varro, R. R. iii. 12; Aelian, H. A. xiii. 15; Solin. 26.) Among the snails valued by the Romans as a diet, was a species from the Balearic isles, called cavaticae, from their being bred in caves. (Pliny xxx. 6. s. 15.) Their chief mineral product was the red earth, called sinope, which was used by painters. (Pliny xxxv. 6. s. 13; Vitruv. vii. 7.) Their resin and pitch are mentioned by Dioscorides (Materia Medica i. 92). The population of the two islands is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.

The part of the Mediterranean east of Spain, around the Balearic Isles, was called "Mare Balearicum" (Template:Polytonic, Ptol. ii 4. § 3), or "Sinus Balearicus". (Flor. iii. 6. § 9.)

Post Roman Empire

In the chaos surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire, the islands were conquered by the Vandals. Subsequent conquerors include: the Byzantines, the Arabs, and the Aragonese. The latter brutally settled the islands, mainly by Catalan population, virtually extinguishing the previous populations, and initially ruled the Balearics as the vassal Kingdom of Mallorca, but in 1344 this ceased to exist and it was directly incorporated into the Crown of Aragon, which was later united dynastically with Castile as a result of the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, and formally absorbed into Spain by the Nueva Planta decrees after the War of Spanish Succession. Minorca was a British dependency most of the 18th century, a time in which the island was conquered and reconquered and traded by British, French and Spanish forces in several wars.

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Notes

1. Ley orgánica 2/1983, de 25 de febrero, por la que se aprueba el estatuto de autonomía del las Illes Balears (PDF) See especially article 1.2. Note that the Spanish-language title uses the Catalan name. Accessed 2 July 2006.

Trivia

In 1935, the islands served as a transit stop for Air France Lioré et Olivier LeO H.242 flying boat heading to Algiers from Marseilles.

Illes Balears sponsors a professional cycling team in the UCI ProTour.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

See also

• Balearic Islands cuisine
• List of municipalities in the Balearic Islands
• Gymnesian Islands
• Pine Islands
• Ibiza

External links

• Government of the Balearic Islands
• Illes Balears - Official travel website for the Balearic Islands
• BalearesWeb - Website directory for the Balearic Islands
• Baleares Travel Net - Travel website directory in the Balearics
• SpainInfo - Touristic information of the Balearic Islands
• Balearic Islands Tourist Information
• Ibiza Map - Maps of the Balearic Island of Ibiza
• Minorcan history at the Consell Insular de Menorca's web page
• Template:Placeopedia

Template:Spain Template:SPprov

• Autonomous communities of Spain
• Islands of Spain
• Balearic Islands
• NUTS 2 Statistical Regions of Europe