The Most Beautiful Places in the Balearic Islands
10 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in the Balearic Islands are Es Pontàs, Caló d'es Moro and Palma Cathedral. The list covers 10 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera — are limestone set in an unusually clear sea. Wind and water have cut the soft rock into narrow coves, arches and caves, and meadows of Posidonia seagrass on the seabed keep the water calm and transparent, which is why the shallows here turn such a vivid turquoise over white sand. On land, the islands carry the marks of Romans, Moors, the medieval Kingdom of Majorca and centuries of quarrying stone by hand.
The coast leads. Off Mallorca's south-east shore, Es Pontàs is a free-standing arch of rock in the open sea, and nearby Caló des Moro squeezes a small beach between pine-topped cliffs. On Menorca, Cala Macarella opens a curve of pale sand within a wooded bay, and on Formentera the long sandbar of Ses Illetes runs out between two shades of turquoise water.
Inland and underground the variety continues. The Coves del Drach at Porto Cristo hold an underground lake beneath stalactite ceilings, where concerts are played from boats. In Palma, the Gothic cathedral of La Seu rises straight from the old sea wall, its interior later reworked by Antoni Gaudí, and Bellver Castle above the city is one of the very few round castles in Europe. On Menorca, the old sandstone quarries of s'Hostal have been turned into Líthica, a garden of sheer cut walls and stone labyrinths.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Es Pontàs | Natural arch | |
| 2 | Caló d'es Moro | Beach | |
| 3 | Palma Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 4 | Es Vedrà | Island | |
| 5 | Coves del Drach | Show cave | |
| 6 | Bellver Castle | Castle | |
| 7 | Líthica – s'Hostal Quarries | Quarry | |
| 8 | Formentor Lighthouse | Lighthouse | |
| 9 | Ses Illetes | Beach | |
| 10 | Cala Macarella | Beach |
01 Es Pontàs
Spain39.326° N 3.145° E
KANO PHOTO · CC BY-SA 2.0 Es Pontàs — "the big bridge" in Catalan — is a limestone sea arch on the south-east coast of Mallorca, standing free in the water a short way off the cliffs between Cala Santanyí and Cala Llombards.
Did you know? Sharma's earlier line Pontax, climbed in November 2005 and graded 8c, shares the route but escapes seaward at the crux leap.
02 Caló d'es Moro
Spain39.314° N 3.121° E
Tommie Hansen from Stockholm, Sweden · CC BY 2.0 Caló d'es Moro is a tiny cove on the southeastern coast of Mallorca, in the municipality of Santanyí, and its smallness is the point. The beach itself is only about thirty metres long and twenty wide, a pocket of white sand and pebbles at the end of a narrow inlet.
Did you know? Winter storms can strip away much of the sand, as currents drag the sediment offshore and leave the beach rockier until it slowly rebuilds.
03 Palma Cathedral
Catedral de Santa María de Palma de Mallorca
Spain · 0.9 km from Palma de Mallorca39.568° N 2.648° E
Image by McRonny from Pixabay Seen from the water, La Seu seems to grow straight out of Palma's old sea wall: a cliff of golden sandstone buttresses standing between the royal palace of La Almudaina and the bishop's palace. It is one of the most theatrical waterfront silhouettes in the Mediterranean, and it was meant to be.
Did you know? The oldest surviving part is the Chapel of the Holy Trinity of 1327, which holds the tombs of the Mallorcan kings James II and James III.
04 Es Vedrà
Isla de Es Vedrá
Spain38.867° N 1.199° E
Image by piquar from Pixabay Rising straight out of the sea off Ibiza's south-west coast, Es Vedrà is a single limestone crag 413 metres high, steep-sided and uninhabited, its jagged silhouette dominating the horizon from the cove of Cala d'Hort.
Did you know? Es Vedrà and its neighbouring islets were declared a nature reserve in 2002, and landing is forbidden except for permitted research or education.
05 Coves del Drach
Cuevas del Drach
Spain39.536° N 3.331° E
Image by lapping from Pixabay The Caves of Drach, the "Dragon Caves", are a chain of four connected caverns on the east coast of Mallorca, a world of white and amber stalactites that ends at one of the largest underground lakes known.
Did you know? The Mallorcan entrepreneur Joan Servera Camps began turning the caves into an attraction in 1922, after buying the land around the entrance.
06 Bellver Castle
Spain · 3.2 km from Palma de Mallorca39.564° N 2.619° E
Fedoce1 (Fernando Domínguez Cerejido) · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bellver Castle crowns a pine-covered hill about 112 metres high just west of central Palma, and its name, from the medieval Catalan "bell veer", means simply "beautiful view": from the roof you look over the city, the port, the bay and the Serra de Tramuntana.
Did you know? Bellver has been a legally protected monument since 3 June 1931, the same year the Republic gave it to the city.
07 Líthica – s'Hostal Quarries
Pedrera de s'Hostal (Líthica)
Spain40.003° N 3.870° E
yo · CC BY 3.0 On the edge of Ciutadella, the old stone quarries of s'Hostal have turned an industrial wound into one of the most unexpected gardens in the Mediterranean.
Did you know? The name Líthica comes from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone.
08 Formentor Lighthouse
Faro de Formentor
Spain39.961° N 3.212° E
Image by Leonhard_Niederwimmer from Pixabay The Formentor lighthouse sits at the very end of Mallorca's northernmost peninsula, a long, narrow ridge that runs out into the sea beyond the bay of Pollença.
Did you know? The peninsula once belonged to the poet Miquel Costa i Llobera, whose poem The Pine of Formentor made one of its wind-bent trees famous.
09 Ses Illetes
Spain38.750° N 1.433° E
Freedom IS Paradise - Ibiza · CC BY-SA 4.0 At the northern tip of Formentera the island narrows to a thin finger of sand and rock called Es Trucadors, with water on both sides.
Did you know? The shore is really two beaches, Platja de les Xalanes and Platja de n'Adolf, divided by the small headland of Punta del Pas de l'Illa.
10 Cala Macarella
Spain39.938° N 3.937° E
Image by matressa_ from Pixabay Cala Macarella is the classic image of southern Menorca: a deep inlet in the limestone coast, closed at its head by a crescent of white sand about 140 metres long, with steep cliffs on both sides and a dense cover of pines running right down to the rocks.
Did you know? The small wetland behind the beach is home to coots and eels, an unexpected pocket of fresh water at the foot of a dry ravine.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in the Balearic Islands?
- On our list, Es Pontàs ranks first, followed by Caló d'es Moro and Palma Cathedral.
- Why is the sea so clear in the Balearic Islands?
- Meadows of Posidonia oceanica, a seagrass found only in the Mediterranean, trap sediment and calm the water, while the white sand of the coves reflects light back up. Part of these meadows between Ibiza and Formentera is protected as a World Heritage Site.
- What is unusual about Bellver Castle?
- Bellver Castle, built in the early 14th century for King James II of Majorca, has a circular plan with a round courtyard, which is extremely rare among European castles.
- Did Gaudí work on Palma Cathedral?
- Yes. Between 1904 and 1914 Antoni Gaudí carried out a renovation of the interior, moving the choir stalls and designing the large canopy that hangs over the main altar.
- What kinds of places are there to see in the Balearic Islands?
- In our collection, the places in the Balearic Islands are most often beaches (3), rock formations (1), natural arches (1) and show caves (1).
- How many places are on this list in the Balearic Islands?
- The list covers 10 places.