Since Classical times, the island has always known for being an integral part of myths and legends that associate it with the Fortune Islands, the Hesperides, the Elysian Fields or even the mythical Atlantis. Later, European expansion towards the Atlantic, from the Middle Ages onwards, was such that the island was discovered anew and included on the itinerary of the many voyages undertaken by navigators and adventurers. It soon came to be part of the target of the socioeconomic aspirations of the conquistadores, European and North African merchants and pirates who sailed the islands? waters, sheltering in the natural harbours such as Arrecife and El Río.
 
After the Norman Conquest, from the beginning of the 15th century, Lanzarote began to forge close social, cultural, political and economic ties with Spain ? and, by extension, the rest of Europe ? which have survived to this day.
 
Until well into the second half of the 20th century, the island subscribed to an agricultural economy which experienced precarious times condemning the island to continued famines, exoduses, droughts and agricultural crises, together with secular abandonment on the part of the various central and regional administrations. However, there were also times of abundance, determined by other agroeconomic cycles such as the cereal stage, wine and aguardiente production, trade in soda and cochineal, the cultivation of onions, potatoes and tomatoes, or fishing in the Canary-Saharan Bank.
 
In the latter stages of the 20th century, the development of the tourist industry would usurp the place of the island's agricultural and fishing economy and draw an entirely new socioeconomic landscape which would in turn produce a sharp increase in the island's economy, linked to high levels of consumption on the cost and an increase in the resident population, as a phenomenon strictly related to service sector activities.
 
The creation of a body of work under the aegis of the artist César Manrique and the Cabildo de Lanzarote has encouraged a peculiar way of understanding the impact of human actions  on the territory, based on premises such as respect for nature and the protection of the traditional values of the human landscape. This experience of acting on and intervening in the landscape, accumulated in an different and harmonious way, has established a model and a philosophy which have allowed the island to retain a significant part of its essence.