The city Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on Gran Canaria is with nearly 400.000 inhabitants the biggest city of the Canarian Islands. It is the capital of the Spanish province Las Palmas and of the autonomic region of the Canary islands (Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias). Substantially impressed by its harbour, which is the second largest at the Atlantic ocean. To its neighbourhood communities counts Santa Brígida in the South and Arucas in the West.
The text above I swiped from the article in the German Wikipedia, they wrote it much better than I ever could. The province Las Palmas encloses all the islands in the east of the archipel, the western islands belong to the province ‘Santa Cruz de Tenerife’ therefor to the capital of the neighbour island Teneriffa. The autonomic region of the Canary Islands contains all islands.
Las Palmas is really a town. You can realize it, when you come more and more to the North on the motorway. It becomes crowded (especially at working days) and the surrounding is often not nice. In the city itself the motorway is more a highway in the city.
If it’s not so important to go shopping or visit the Mercado, it is easier to drive into the town on Sundays. There are several car parks and the prices are reasonable. So we end up close to the central bus station, from there it was not far to the main shopping street, the Triana, through which you can pass easy to the old town.
I have no idea, how high are the prices for petrol in your country. For German readers it is definetly a hart survey to take a look on a canarian petrol pump after filling up (today you pay here 1,09 € for diesel and 1,33 € for simple petrol – and the area here is normally one of the cheapest in Germany).
A bit north to the city center is Santa Catalina. Here you can find the well-known beach Las Canteras.
