Majorca, or MALLORCA, the largest of the Balearic Isles (q.v.), lies about 100 miles from the Spanish coast, and 150 N. of Algiers. It is 60 miles long by 40 broad, and 1310 sq. m. in area. The climate is healthful, the sea-breeze preserving a nearly equable temperature over the whole island. In the north there are mountains reaching 3500 to 5000 feet in height. The hillsides are terraced; olive groves abound everywhere, and almond, orange, fig, and other fruit trees are common. The vine is grown and good wine made. The soil is extraordinarily fertile, and is cultivated with marvellous patience and skill by the inhabitants, 233,650 in number, who manufacture cloth, cotton goods, ropes, silk, soap, shoes, &c., and have a trade to and from Spain of the annual value of £1,410,000. There are railways (total 48 miles) connecting the capital, Palma (q.v.), with Manacor (15,000), the second town of the island (where as well as at Arta there are magnificent caves), and La Puebla (5000). Between this town and Alfidia, the port for Minorca and Barcelona, lie the marshes of Albufera (5000 acres), drained by a London company in 1865-71, and now of extraordinary fertility. Raymond Lully was born at Palma; at Valdemosa George Sand resided in 1838 and wrote her Spiridon; and the beautiful seat of the Austrian Archduke Ludwig Salvator is at Miramar. Large quantities of lusted ware (Majolica, q.v.) were exported to Italy and elsewhere in the 15th century; this ware is still made to a small extent. Many of the nobles have handsome palaces in the island.
See Bidwell's Balearic Isles (1876); the sumptuous Balearen in Wort und Bild (5 vols. 1869-84), anon., but by Archduke Ludwig Salvator; and C. W. Wood, Letters from Majorca (1889).