The Metropolitan Area of Tenerife encompasses the municipalities of Santa Cruz, La Laguna, El Rosario and Tegueste, and is home to much of the island’s population. It is one of the three large regions that the island is split into, together with South Tenerife and North Tenerife. South Tenerife is the most touristic, North Tenerife is full of tradition and shrouded in a stately ambiance, while the Metropolitan Area contains the island’s two most important cities: Santa Cruz, the capital city, seat of the island’s Government and Administration, with one of Tenerife’s largest town centres; and San Cristobal de La Laguna, a noble city with stately buildings, churches and cathedrals, a university tradition, and with some of the island’s finest artistic, cultural and historical heritage throughout its narrow streets. But there’s so much more to the Metropolitan Area than its town centres, from the dense Anaga forests to its jagged coastline, there are wild volcanic sand beaches, houses suspended from the mountains, incredible viewpoints, and hundreds of small treasures waiting to be discovered.