Santa Cruz de Tenerife is also commonly referred to as Santa Cruz, and it is the capital city of the Tenerife Island which is located within the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Province. As a major city in its province, it serves as the capital city of the Canary Islands, together with Las Palmas. Almost a half of the population of the Tenerife Island is found within Santa Cruz de Tenerife, making its city and urban area the second-largest of all the cities in the Canary Islands region.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife has a beautiful location off the northwest part of the African coast, within Tenerife's northeastern quadrant, on the Atlantic Ocean. Thanks to this, the city stands as the active hub for communication between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
The cityscape of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a rich blend of ancient and modern architecture, resulting in an attractive setting and contrast. The magnificent Mercado Nuestra Senora de Africa stands might in its marble and stone design and is a representation of the ancient structures in the city. The same goes for the intricately-designed sand-and-stone Puente Serrador tower.
The tall Torres de Santa Cruz is among the modern skyscraper architecture in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and the same goes for stunning and majestic Auditorio de Tenerife. The Plaza de Espana is Santa Cruz de Tenerife's largest public squares and has a beautiful location at the heart of the city. One other unifying structure is the Iglesia Matriz de la Concepcion, the firmly-founded Catholic Church with its sweeping five naves.
Today, apart from being the central economic, educational, cultural, and historical hub of its region, Santa Cruz de Tenerife remains a crucial tourist attraction destination, not only in its region but across the Canary Islands as well. On top of that, the city is considered among the top five most natural and best places to live in the world.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife experiences a semi-arid climate of BSh under the Köppen climatic classification. In general, the weather is characterized by extremely hot, humid, and dry summers and warm and pleasant, moderately wet winters. There is ample sunshine throughout the years, and extremely low temperature is very rare.
Summer has the mercury expanding to as high as 33°C (91.4°F) on the hottest of days, but the daily mean high temperature remains 28.5°C (83.3°F). The nights are cool, and the extended daylight hours offer a chance to venture into the nightlife of the city.
Winter has the most tolerable weather of the year. The temperature is in the highs of 23.5°C (74.3°F) and lows of 15.8°C (60.4°F), with extremely rare cases of very cold days or nights.
Thankfully for its steady warm temperature across the year, Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a year-round travel destination. However, the highest numbers of visitors check-in between
December and
March, during winter and the onset of spring. This period has the best weather of the year for outdoor ventures since it is devoid of the exceedingly scorching, very humid, and utterly dry summer days. Most of the attended events in the city also happen to occur around this time.
The Carnaval Festival between
February and March is among the most attended events in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as is the Festival Internacional de Musica de Canarias that is usually held between
January and February.