Arrecife - Main town of Lanzarote. Arrecife is since 1852 the capital of Lanzarote and with more than 45.000 inhabitants is the largest city of the island and also the administrative Area. It is where nearly half of the island population lives nowadays. The name Arrecife is derived from "reef", which is to due to the rocks along the coast surrounding the village. When the fishing trading was still worthwhile, the largest fishing fleet of the Canary Islands laid in the port of Arrecife, this is until Spain was administrating the territories in western Sahara, all that coast line was fishing area for the Spanish boats, and the nearest island to that is Lanzarote. At the moment we can now say that much work has gone through Arrecife to make it substantially the capital and a recondition of all the pedestrian areas and the beach promenade have taken place. The look of the main walking areas along the sea side have been renewed in the last years and also many parts of the internal area of the city are refurbished every year, more developed and somehow more elegant and clean, the place has a new face for the visitor. Nevertheless it has become a little city with attractive streets and places to go shopping, with coffee bars and fashion shops, with restaurants and "tapas" Bars becomes a quiet nice spot away from the chaotic accumulation of houses surrounding Arrecife where one find many industrial areas with furniture shops, cash and Carry supermarkets, shopping centres and industries. Not far away from Arrecife the international airport is found, which was built some years ago and working normally since 1999. It is a modern Airport, with daily connections to the other Canary Isles, Spain and the most important cities of Europe.