It has an area of 143 km2, a population of 3428 inhabitants, and, together with Corvo Island of the western archipelago, lies within the North American Plate.

[3] The historians Gaspar Frutuoso and Diogo das Chagas noted that Van der Haegen cultivated lands (primarily for wheat export) and was involved in the indigo/woad industry, as well as exploring for mineral deposits (likely silver).

Due to its isolated location outside shipping lanes, its intemperate climate, and infertile lands, he left Flores ten years later to resettle in Terceira by way of São Jorge Island.

[4] By 1504, the island's charter had passed to João Fonseca and settlers streamed through the port of Armoeira to the small hamlets.

The island became permanently populated during the reign of King Manuel I in the year 1510 by people from various regions of continental Portugal, mainly from the northern provinces.

Over the next centuries, the inhabitants lived in isolated parts of the island and were visited by vessels from Faial and Terceira which came infrequently to trade whale oil, butter, and honey for other products, or those caravels that stopped en route to Europe.

[5] Several of the main communities and local sites were named for settlers of this mid-century period, including Santa Cruz, Lajes and Ponta Delgada.

The name of the island of Flores has been made familiar to generations of English readers by the opening line of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's epic poem, The Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet: "At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay...",[6] referring to the small English fleet of six ships (there were actually 22) under Lord Thomas Howard, anchored in the bay of Ribeira da Cruz in Flores, that on 9 September 1591 was surprised by 53 ships under Alfonso de Bazán.

Five of the English ships slipped out to sea to the west of Corvo, but the Revenge (under Sir Richard Grenville) waited for her sick crew, many of whom had an epidemic of fever, to be returned from the shore, then decided to go straight through the approaching Spanish lines from the east.

("And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,/ Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,/ And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace...").

The "Battle of Flores", as it was known, culminated in the death of Grenville two days later and the Revenge became the only English ship to be captured during the Elizabethan conflict.

Sir Walter Raleigh, the English privateer, was one of the early profiteers;[citation needed] he captured, after a bitter battle, the Portuguese carrack Madre de Deus laden with tonnes of spices, precious gems, and pearls, equivalent to half the public finances of the English court.

The CSS Alabama, an American Confederate States Navy ship, the most prolific commerce raider in the waters off Flores, was responsible for 69 sinkings in the course of two years beginning in the summer of 1862.

The island's isolation has been remedied during the 20th century, first with the installation of telegraph services, then the establishment of Radio-Flores (1909), and later with point-to-point telephone communication (1925).

It uses its World Network of Biosphere Reserves as vehicles for knowledge sharing, research and monitoring, education and training, and participatory decision-making with local communities.

In the government's decision, the regional secretary included an area "especially rich in peat and humid zone vegetation" together with the geological formation of the Rocha dos Bordões.

[8] The island of Flores and the neighbouring Corvo Island, along with the surrounding waters, form the 210,400 ha Corvo and Flores Important Bird Area (IBA), designated as such by BirdLife International because it provides feeding and breeding sites for populations of Cory's, little and Manx shearwaters, as well as roseate and common terns and, possibly, Madeiran storm petrels.

[14] The public works were intended to upgrade many of the island's roads, considered the worst network in the Azores during the late part of the 20th century.