LA OROTAVA

town, northern Tenerife island, Santa Cruz de Tenerife provincia, Canary Islands comunidad autnoma (autonomous community), Spain, just southwest of Santa Cruz de Tenerife city. The town is a health resort with its port, Puerto de la Cruz, on the coast immediately to the northwest. It lies in the Orotava Valley, known for its luxuriant vegetation and called the most beautiful in the world by the German traveler Alexander von Humboldt, who visited there in 1799. Its chief agricultural products are bananas, tobacco, and cochineal, a red dyestuff. Pop. (1981) 10,158.