Macaronesian Islands

Macaronesia is a collection of four archipelagos in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the continents of Europe and Africa. Apart from the Azores, which are considered mainly as part of Europe, the other islands of Macaronesia are closer to Africa. The Macaronesian islands belong to three countries: Portugal, Spain, and Cape Verde.

The name is derived from the Greek words for "islands of the fortunate" μακάρων νῆσοι makárōn nêsoi, a term used by Ancient Greek geographers for islands to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Macaronesia is occasionally misspelled "Macronesia" in false analogy with Micronesia, an unrelated Pacific archipelago containing, among other nations, a country of the same name.

Macaronesia consists of four main archipelagos; namely (north to south):

The islands of Macaronesia are volcanic in origin, and are thought to be the product of several geologic hotspots.

The climate of the Macaronesian islands ranges from Mediterranean in the Azores and Madeira to arid in certain geologically older islands of both the Canaries (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura) and Cape Verde (Sal, Boa Vista and Maio), or sub-tropical in the younger islands of both southern archipelagos (Santo Antão, Santiago and Fogo in Cape Verde, or La Palma and El Hierro in the Canaries). The Portuguese archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira have a generally cooler climate and higher rainfall than the Canaries and Cape Verde. The laurisilva forests of Macaronesia are a type of mountain cloud forest with relict species of a vegetation-type which originally covered much of the Mediterranean Basin when the climate of that region was more humid. The species has evolved to adapt to the islands conditions and many are endemic.

...
Wikipedia