Los Silos Explained

Official Name:Los Silos
Settlement Type:Municipality and town
Pushpin Map:Spain Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife#Canary Islands#Spain with Canary Islands
Pushpin Map Caption:Location in Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: Spain
Subdivision Type1:Autonomous Region
Subdivision Name1:Canary Islands
Subdivision Type2:Province
Subdivision Name2:Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Subdivision Type3:Island
Subdivision Name3:Tenerife
Area Footnotes:[1]
Area Total Km2:24.23
Population Density Km2:auto
Timezone:GMT
Utc Offset:+0
Coordinates:28.3656°N -16.8164°W
Postal Code Type:Post code
Postal Code:38042
Blank Name:Climate
Blank Info:BSh
Website:www.lossilos.es

Los Silos is a municipality and town in the northwestern part of the island Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. It is located on the north coast, 57 km West of the capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Its name first appears in 1509, when the agricultural activity of the region made necessary the construction of silos to store cereals. The town located at the heart of the Teno Massif, contains an extremely valuable and interesting wealth of plant and animal life. The leafy laurisilva woodlands are in stark contrast with the plains on the coast, which still hold small areas of cardones and tabaibas, furrowed by steep-sided ravines which are routes bringing together the highlands and the coast.

Among the plant formations, the most outstanding is the cardonal–tabaibal which occupies the lower parts of the district, practically from sea level up to areas close to the old coastal cliffs, which separate the sector of the oldest Isla Baja from the Monte Verde, a woodland with great water needs whose existence depends on the additional moisture brought by the sea of clouds which reaches the island on the Trade Winds.The Monte del Agua is, together with the mountains of Anaga, the main representation on the island of Tenerife of the Canarian Monte Verde and is still relatively well-conserved, among other reasons, as a result of the steepness of the terrain, furrowed by a large number of deep ravines and sheltering in its immense mass of forest one of the best populations of the endemic white-tailed laurel pigeon and Bolle's laurel pigeon. For all these reasons, a large part of our municipal territory is included within the Canarian network of Protected Natural Spaces including the Parque Rural de Teno, Site of Special Scientific Interest and the los Acantilados de La Culata Protected Landscape.All of this landscape is criss-crossed by a multitude of footpaths, delimited by dry-stone walls, which past generations for many years created and embellished even cobbling the steepest parts so as to enable animals shod with horseshoes and beasts of burden to obtain a better grip, and now with the passage of time and thanks to the sensitivity of the current inhabitants, these old footpaths have been recovered. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927212520/http://www.webtenerifeuk.co.uk/PortalTenerife/Home/Disfruta+sin+perderte+nada/Mas+sobre+Tenerife/Geografia/Municipios/Los+Silos.htm?Lang=en&sig=true

Notes and References

  1. http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/istac/jaxi-istac/menu.do?uripub=urn:uuid:fbc0bdc8-cacb-43b8-a5cb-a93f745dcff6 Instituto Canario de Estadística