To which country do the Cies Islands belong?

The Cíes Islands are an archipelago off the coast of Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain. They were declared a Nature Reserve in 1980 and are included in the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park created in 2002.

The Cíes consist of three islands, Monteagudo ("Sharp Mount" or North Island), do Faro ("Lighthouse Island", or Illa do Medio, "Middle Island") and San Martiño ("Saint Martin" or South Island).

The islands formed by the end of the Tertiary, when some parts of the coast sank, creating the rías ("estuaries"). All three islands are the peaks of the coastal mountains now partially under the sea and are formed mainly of granitic rock.

The scrubland is formed mainly of autochthonous species, like gorse, broom, asparagus, spurge flax, or rockrose. There is a large colony of seagulls, about 22,000 pairs, and they are the dominant species in Cíes. A census in 1960 counted 400 pairs of Iberian guillemots, a species now almost extinct on the islands. Also, there are a variety of birds wintering or resting on their migratory journeys here.