Formentera

The island's name is said to come from the Latin frumentarium, a granary. People lived here as early as about 2000–1600 BC, leaving sites such as the megalithic tomb of Ca na Costa and remains at Cap de Barbaria and the Cova des Fum. Carthaginians and then Romans held the island, followed by Vandals, Byzantines, Visigoths and Arabs, and in 1109 it was devastated by the Norwegian king Sigurd I on his crusade. After the conquest by James I it passed to the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Majorca.

From 1403 the threat of Barbary pirates made the island effectively uninhabitable, and for most of the next three centuries it was only occasionally occupied by people from Ibiza. Resettlement began for good in 1695, when the island was granted to two Ibizans in payment for their services, and coastal watchtowers protected the new settlers. There were about 400 inhabitants by the mid-18th century and nearly 2,000 by the end of the 19th.

Change came late. The island had no electricity until 1968, but from the end of the 1960s it became a destination for hippies, a movement that left a lasting mark on its character; Joni Mitchell wrote the album Blue here, and King Crimson named a song after it. After long campaigning Formentera won its own island council, separate from Ibiza's, in 2007, and a constitutional reform in 2026 gave it a senator of its own.

The island's identity is bound up with its decades as a hippie refuge. The hippie movement that arrived at the end of the 1960s left a deep mark on its character, and nude sunbathing is accepted on most beaches. Writers and musicians have long been drawn to it: Jules Verne wrote of it in his novels, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Gilberto Gil sang about it, and Bob Dylan is said to have slept at the Far de la Mola. The lighthouse at Cap de Barbaria is central to Julio Medem's film Sex and Lucía, which was filmed on the island.

The islanders speak a local Ibizan variety of Balearic Catalan alongside Spanish, though in summer Italian, English, German, French and Dutch are all heard widely. The year's main festival is held around 25 July for Saint James, the island's patron, and the Formentera Jazz Festival brings local and international musicians in early June. Cultural sights are few — some megalithic sites, watchtowers, four Martello towers, the 18th-century church of Sant Francesc Xavier and a small ethnological museum — and life centres on the sea, the beaches and village squares.

About 11,700 people were registered on the island in 2025, making it the least populated of the Balearic Islands. Sant Francesc Xavier, with about 6,400, holds the public administration, followed by Sant Ferran de ses Roques and El Pilar de la Mola. The island forms a single municipality, also called Formentera, run by its own island council.

Tourism is by far the largest part of the economy, and the island depends heavily on the money made in July and August, when it receives huge numbers of visitors. Some islanders still make a living from small-scale traditional fishing.

Pressure on the island's fragile dunes and waters has led to stricter management: boardwalks protect regenerating dunes, areas of sea are protected for their plants and fish, and the number of vehicles is limited in summer. In winter the island empties, the buses are reduced to a single route, and daily life returns to a small, local scale.

Formentera's cooking belongs to the Balearic tradition, in which fish and seafood feature prominently on islands surrounded by the sea. The best-known sweet is the flaó, a cheese tart claimed by Majorca, Ibiza and Formentera; the Ibiza and Formentera version is round and filled with sheep's or goat's cottage cheese, eggs and sugar and flavoured with peppermint and aniseed. Sobrassada, the raw cured sausage of the Balearic Islands made with ground pork, paprika and salt, is eaten across the island.

Some islanders still fish on a small, traditional scale, and restaurants line the harbour at La Savina. The island's very name is said to come from the Latin for a granary.

Eating out is relaxed. The island has many small restaurants varying in price and style, with clusters around the port, at Es Pujols and along the southern beach of Migjorn, where bars such as the Blue Bar, open since the 1960s, are known for sunset views.