Mallorca or Majorca: one island, two spellings — and what the numbers say

It is the same island. The official name is Mallorca; Majorca is the older English spelling of the same word. Below: where the two names come from, and what the numbers say about living there.

Which name is official

Balearic law makes only the Catalan form of place names official: article 14 of law 3/1986 says so, in the wording adopted in 2016. For this island there is nothing to argue about, since Catalan and Spanish spell it the same way: Mallorca. The argument happens next door, where Catalan Eivissa and Spanish Ibiza differ. The law on BOE.

Where Majorca comes from

Both names come from the Latin Maiorica. The old Catalan form was Maiorca, which later became Mallorca, while English kept the older spelling with a j. The smaller island next door has the same pair: Menorca in Spanish, Minorca in English. Alcover–Moll dictionary.

In Spanish, Mallorca sounds close to «ma-YOR-ka». Signs and official documents on the island use Mallorca, as the same law requires; searching either spelling finds the same place.

The island in numbers

Our base has 3 places on Mallorca. For each: price per m² with its basis, the winter score, the share of businesses operating in January, the months of warm sea, and the water at its beaches.

The capital's price per m² is the appraised value from the ministry bulletin; the others are asking prices, because the ministry publishes appraisals only for towns above 25,000 people. The two cannot be compared directly: appraisals run systematically lower.

In winter the capital stays open, the resort north closes

This is what summer hides. Of the 3 places on the island in our base, only the capital lives through winter. By monthly social security data for 2025, in January Palma de Mallorca runs at 91 % of its summer peak in cafés, hotels and shops. Alcúdia runs at 44 %, Pollença runs at 52 %.

The resort north lives by the holiday calendar. The capital does not, because it has an economy of its own: a port, an administration, a university. For a second home or a quiet winter this is not a flaw but the point: the whole difference is whether you come for a season or live there.

Water, beach by beach

The European Environment Agency grades every bathing point as excellent, good, sufficient or poor. The grade comes from samples over four seasons, not a single day, so it moves slowly. The latest published season is 2024.

• Alcúdia: all 10 points are excellent.
• Palma de Mallorca: excellent 6, good 6, sufficient 1, poor 0.
• Pollença: excellent 3, good 4, sufficient 1, poor 2.

Poor is the lowest grade on the European scale. In 2024 it applies to 2 points in Pollença. Which beaches they are is in our dataset, point by point and season by season. The agency's data.

Menorca next door: the same names, a different winter

The smaller island is the other half of the same pair. And the law is more visible there: the capital is Maó in Catalan and Mahón in Spanish, and the register of municipalities lists it as «Maó».

On Mallorca the capital runs at 91 % of its summer peak in January. On Menorca even the capital runs at 70 %, and none of the 4 places we cover on the island does better.

The best January share on Menorca is 70 %. Mallorca's capital beats it by 21 points.

Further

Every place on the island, with full data, is on the Mallorca coast page. Bathing water for all of Spain is in our dataset.

Term: winter liveabilitywinter liveabilityA 1-to-5 score of whether a town lives from November to March. Computed from state data: how many cafés, hotels and shops operate in January compared with the summer peak.Why it matters. Most resorts shut for winter. Tourists never notice; someone who moved gets four empty months. A few villages inside another municipality have no state figure of their own — there the score is our estimate, and it is labelled so.

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