The history of Ibiza is far longer and richer than its party-island reputation suggests.
Phoenicians and Carthaginians
The first inhabitants arrived in the Bronze Age, but the island's history begins in 654 BC, when the Phoenicians founded Ibosim in the bay of today's capital. The name may derive from Ibshim, "island of Bes", the protector god. From the sixth century BC the island came under Carthage and became a thriving city, with its port, salt pans, pottery and the Puig des Molins necropolis, where thousands of figurines of the goddess Tanit, still the island's symbol, have been found. The Phoenician settlement of Sa Caleta is also a UNESCO site.
Romans, Vandals, Byzantines and Moors
After the Second Punic War Ibiza became a city allied to Rome as Ebusus. It then passed to the Vandals and Byzantines, and in the tenth century was conquered by the Arabs, who called it Yabisa, introduced new farming and irrigation techniques and ruled it for over three centuries (see al-Andalus).
The Catalan conquest
On 8 August 1235, feast of Our Lady of the Snows, the island was conquered by Catalan troops led by the archbishop of Tarragona on behalf of James I of Aragon; the date is still the island's holiday. Ibizans resettled the island speaking a variety of Catalan, eivissenc.
Pirates and fortifications
For centuries Ibiza was exposed to attacks by Barbary pirates and Turks. In the sixteenth century the great Renaissance walls of Dalt Vila and watchtowers along the coast were built, while country churches such as Sant Jordi and Sant Antoni were fortified. Ibizans themselves armed corsair ships: a monument at the port remembers the corsairs. The island long lived from farming, fishing and salt.
Artists, hippies and tourism
In the twentieth century Ibiza was a poor, isolated island where artists and intellectuals took refuge, such as the philosopher Walter Benjamin in 1932-1933. In the 1950s and 1960s painters, writers and then hippies arrived, drawn by freedom, nature and low costs: the markets and adlib fashion were born. From the 1970s and 1980s the island became a destination for mass tourism and electronic music, with its big clubs. In 1999 UNESCO recognised its heritage of biodiversity and culture. Today Ibiza debates how to balance tourism, residents and the environment (see nature and Ibiza town).