The Canary Islands, also known informally as the Canaries, is a Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in a region known as Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometres west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain, and are located in the African Tectonic Plate. The archipelago is economically and politically European, and is part of the European Union.
