At the far northwest of Tenerife, where the island looks out over the Atlantic beneath the wall of the Teno massif, lies Buenavista del Norte. Long before the Castilian conquest, this land was inhabited by the Guanches and belonged to the menceyato of Daute, the westernmost of the nine aboriginal kingdoms into which the island was divided, taking in the whole Teno massif and the Isla Baja. The mencey of Daute kept seasonal residences here —the Cave of Asena, on the coast, and the Cave of Los Santos, at Bujamé— and the territory preserves a valuable archaeological legacy: the sites of Las Arenas and La Fuente, the Cave of Las Estacas, the shell middens of Teno Bajo and burial grounds at Teno Alto, El Carrizal and the shoreline. After the landing of Alonso Fernández de Lugo, Daute resisted the invasion until the surrender of the menceyes in 1496, in the episode known as the Peace of Los Realejos.

Once the conquest was complete, the distribution of the fertile lands of the Isla Baja gave rise to the settlement of Buenavista, whose official founding is dated 11 March 1498. The town was laid out around a chapel —the seed of the present parish— by settlers such as Juan Méndez «El Viejo» and Juan de Mesa. Buenavista is one of the few municipalities in the Canaries to preserve its Founding Charter, drawn up in 1513 at the request of the townspeople. The coastal plain, formed by the volcanic lava flows that created the Isla Baja, proved ideal for farming, and the town prospered despite hardships such as the plague of locusts that ravaged its crops in the 17th century and prompted the famous prayers to the Virgin of Los Remedios.

The monumental heart of the town is the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, whose first stone was laid in 1513 and which held its inaugural mass in 1518, with extensions until the late 17th century and the tower raised in 1951. Built with three naves separated by semicircular arches on columns with Tuscan capitals, it housed a rich Baroque heritage until, on 22 June 1996, a devastating fire destroyed altarpieces, statuary, paintings and silverwork, including the image of the Virgin dated 1733. After eight years of patient reconstruction, the church reopened its doors on 5 June 2004. The historic centre around it, declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in the category of Historic Ensemble, preserves its regular layout, broad streets and traditional architecture, alongside the chapels of San Sebastián and La Fuente, the former Franciscan convent of San Francisco and estates such as San Juan de Taco, with its chapel of 1641.

Beyond the town centre, the municipality is divided between the Isla Baja, the Teno massif and Teno Bajo. The massif is one of the oldest geological formations on Tenerife, created some seven million years ago, and since 1994 it has been protected as the Teno Rural Park, which with its 8,063 hectares (more than 5,500 of them in Buenavista) shelters laurel forest, sheer cliffs and an extraordinary biodiversity with hundreds of endemic species, several exclusive to the massif itself. At its tip stands Punta de Teno, a true island «land's end» crowned by a lighthouse whose construction, designed by José Sanz Soler, was carried out between 1891 and 1893 and entered service in 1897; because of its wild beauty and difficult access, entry by car is now regulated and channelled by bus from Buenavista.

The municipality also includes the famous hamlet of Masca, set deep within the massif, in a landscape of dizzying peaks and ravines. Of Guanche origin —its inhabitants used the abundant water for terraced crops and goat herding— Masca is a cluster of houses of volcanic stone, wood, clay and cane, included in the list of Assets of Cultural Interest. Its ravine, which descends to the sea between vertical walls on one of the most spectacular hiking routes in the Canaries, has been subject to access regulation to protect it. The traditional economy, based on farming and subsistence livestock, gave life to settlements such as El Palmar, Las Portelas, Las Lagunetas, Los Carrizales and Teno Alto.

Today the coastal strip of the Isla Baja is covered with banana plantations grown on the volcanic flows, coexisting with a thriving service sector linked to nature tourism, hiking and sport. A clear sign of this evolution is the Buenavista Golf course, opened in October 2003 and the last design by the legendary golfer Severiano Ballesteros, an 18-hole par 72 embraced by the Atlantic and the Teno massif, several of whose greens overlook the cliffs where the waves break. In 1948 the municipality received the title of «Muy Honorable Villa» (Most Honourable Town) and adopted a coat of arms that sums up its identity: the blue of sea and sky, the Teno lighthouse, the green of fertility and the locusts that recall the miracle of the Virgin of Los Remedios. Thus, at the edge of the island, Buenavista del Norte preserves a rare balance of heritage, landscape and tradition.