The archipelago forms a province and autonomous community of Spain, with Palma de Mallorca being its capital and largest city.

Formerly part of the Kingdom of Mallorca, the islands were made a province in the 19th century provincial division, which in 1983 received a Statute of Autonomy.

According to Lycophron's Alexandra verses, the islands were called Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae (γυμνός/gymnos, meaning 'naked' in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of the mostly balmy year-round climate.

[16][17] The main islands of the autonomous community are Majorca (Mallorca), Menorca/Minorca (Menorca), Ibiza (Eivissa/Ibiza), and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations.

In addition, Diodorus Siculus writes that the Greeks called the islands Gymnesiae because the inhabitants were naked (γυμνοί) during the summer time.

Other stories have it that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that their men were remarkable for their love of women and would trade three or four men to ransom one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, and forbade the importation of the precious metals—so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money.

[26] The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times;[27] a remarkable trace of their colonisation is preserved in the town of Mago (Maó in Menorca).

[28] The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by Q. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC.

[32] They were celebrated for their cattle, especially for the mules of the lesser island; they had an immense number of rabbits, and were free from all venomous reptiles.

Now nominally both Byzantine and Umayyad, the de facto independent islands occupied a strategic and profitable grey area between the competing religions and kingdoms of the western Mediterranean.

[citation needed] The prosperous islands were thoroughly sacked by the Swedish Viking King Björn Ironside and his brother Hastein during their Mediterranean raid of 859–862.

However, the Cordoban emirate disintegrated in civil war and partition in the early eleventh century, breaking into smaller states called taifa.

Mujahid al-Siqlabi, the ruler of the Taifa of Dénia, sent a fleet and seized control of the islands in 1015, using it as the base for subsequent expeditions to Sardinia and Pisa.

Led by Ugo da Parlascio Ebriaco and Archbishop Pietro Moriconi of the Republic of Pisa, the expedition included 420 ships, a large army and a personal envoy from Pope Paschal II.

In addition to the Pisans (who had been promised suzerainty over the islands by the Pope), the expedition included forces from the Italian cities of Florence, Lucca, Pistoia, Rome, Siena, and Volterra, from Sardinia and Corsica.

The crusade sacked Palma in 1115 and generally reduced the islands, ending their period as a great sea power, but then withdrew.

The Almoravids were conquered and deposed in North Africa and on the Iberian Peninsula by the rival Almohad Dynasty of Marrakech in 1147.

His dynasty, the Banu Ghaniya, sought allies in their effort to recover their kingdom from the Almohads, leading them to grant Genoa and Pisa their first commercial concessions on the islands.

In 1184, an expedition was sent to recapture Ifriqiya (the coastal areas of what is today Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya) but ended in defeat.

The will created a new Kingdom of Mallorca from the Balearic islands and the mainland counties of Roussillon or Montpellier, which was left to his son James II.

The Balearic Islands were frequently attacked by Ottomans and Barbary pirates from North Africa; Formentera was even temporarily abandoned by its population.

In 1514, 1515 and 1521, the coasts of the Balearic Islands and the Spanish mainland were raided by Turkish privateers under the command of the Ottoman admiral, Hayreddin Barbarossa.

The island fell to French forces, under Armand de Vignerot du Plessis in June 1756 and was occupied by them for the duration of the Seven Years' War.

The continued presence of British naval forces, however, meant that the Balearic Islands were never occupied by the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

Typically, speakers of Balearic Catalan call their own language with a name specific to each island: Mallorquí, Menorquí, Eivissenc, Formenterenc.

On Ibiza and Formentera parishes are further divided into administrative villages (named véndes in Catalan); each vénda is grouping several nearby hamlets (casaments) and their immediate surroundings.

Historically, these structures had been used for defensive purpose as well, and were more tied to the local Catholic church and parishes (notably after the Reconquista).

The only other terrestrial vertebrates native to the islands are Lilford's wall lizard, which today is confined to offshore islets surrounding Mallorca and Menorca, the Ibiza wall lizard native to the Pityusics, and the Majorcan midwife toad, today only found in the mountains of Mallorca.

[53] The gross domestic product (GDP) of the autonomous community was 32.5 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.7% of Spanish economic output.

Several basketball players have come from the Balearic Islands, including Rudy Fernández, Sergio Llull, Joan Sastre and Sergi García, with Llull and Fernández being the two most successful ones, having won the Eurobasket and the FIBA Basketball World Cup.. Tennis player Rafael Nadal, winner of 22 Grand Slam single titles, and former world no.