Los Llanos de Aridane

Los Llanos de Aridane is a Canarian municipality located in the west of the island of La Palma.  The Valley of Aridane, at the leeward side of the island has much sunshine and is a very favorable location, as is the western part of the island, which is fairly well under irrigated.  With 20,170 inhabitants, Los Llanos de Aridane is the most populous municipality of La Palma.

In August 1812, the town of Los Llanos was formed with the population of the same name, plus El Paso.  On April 13, 1837 the county council of Argual Tazacorte proposed that El Paso be allocated to Tacande and that Los Llanos be an independent municipality with it own Town Hall.  A few months later El Paso was separated, and lost a substantial part of its geographical extension.
On September 16, 1925 the government of Primo de Rivera gave the decree from which Los Llanos obtained independence from Tazacorte.  At the time of segregation, Tazacorte was the core of the most populated municipality, with 2,316 inhabitants, and also showed the largest economic development at that time.
Los Llanos de Aridane has an area of 35.79 square kilometers and a population of 20,525 inhabitants (2007). Its altitude is 325 meters above sea level and it has 6.43 kilometers of coastline.

Los Llanos de Aridane is currently the most populated town of the island of La Palma, surpassing the population of the capital, Santa Cruz de la Palma.

The municipality is one of the economic engines of the island, with an economy based on tourism and bananas.  The possible end of European aid to the cultivation of bananas in 2006 could have caused a major economic crisis that would certainly have forced farmers to diversify the economy. But after negotiations with the European Economic Community, Los Llanos was able to fix the situation.
Regarding education, the town has several primary, and two secondary schools.  The secondary schools are IES Eusebio Lorenzo Barreto and Jose Maria Perez Pulido IES.

Places of interest
El Templo de Nuestra Senora de los Remedios is located in the Plaza Espana and there, the locals worship their patron saint.  The church has a replica of the saint that is a sixteenth-century Flemish carving.  It is of relatively simple construction, also of the sixteenth century.

Its interior has been enriched for more than four centuries.  Spotlights located on the floor illuminate the square and, as with most churches in the Canary Islands and Spanish America, its interior is predominantly in the baroque style.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows is located near the mouth of the Gorge of Sorrows (which explains its name).  The first owners of the haciendas and Argual Tazacorte built this shrine at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  It contains an image of the Flemish school of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The Gorge of Sorrows is the natural drainage of the Caldera, currently the largest river on the island.  A large amount of its water is used to irrigate much of the western slopes of the island.