The Playa de Las Teresitas is an artificial, white sand, tourist beach located north of the village of San Andrés, Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Tenerife, Spain. Original beach Originally the area of the beach consisted mostly of stone and rocks, with a small strip of black sand. It was divided into three distinct parts that had different names: Tras la Arena, closest to San Andrés; Los Moros in the middle; and finally the area bounded by the ravine of Las Teresas. There was a private spa in the middle of the beach, and the area was also used for surfing. Above the beach were farms and orchards, growing bananas, mangoes, tomatoes and avocados, that provided the town with most of its income at the time. There is an important paleontological site of the Quaternary. It is a submarine reservoir in a submerged beach, approximately 400 square meters. It contains fossil mollusks, some endemic. Construction of the new beach In the 1950s, various beaches in the Santa Cruz area were disappearing as their sand was being used for construction, and the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife expanded in their place. In 1953, constructing an artificial beach at San Andrés was considered by the Ayuntamiento de Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Santa Cruz City Council). The initial plan was approved in 1961, and engineers Pompeyo Alonso and Miguel Pintor created a full design for the new beach. It was approved by the city council in 1965, and the Spanish ministry in 1967. The expansion of the beach to a width of required the compulsory purchase of the farms above the beach, as well as reducing the height of parts of the area, including the removal of part of the ravine. In 1968, the breakwater was constructed, from the shore, with a length of . Two piers, and an underwater cutting step, were also constructed, in order to prevent waves from carrying sand out to sea, and make the beach safer for bathers. The beach is around long. At the time, buying black local sand was too expensive due to its scarcity, so importing white Sahara Desert sand from the Western Sahara (then the Spanish Sahara) was investigated. The white sand was also more appealing for tourists. In 1971, the city council obtained a loan of 50 million pesetas, and purchased 150,000 cubic metres of sand, weighing around 270,000 tons, from the