Prainha is a civil parish in the municipality of São Roque do Pico on the island of Pico, in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. It has 530 inhabitants in an area of 26.10 km². History “Prainha” was the second settlement to be formed on the north coast of Pico Island, whose settlement began with natives from Northern Portugal, after stopping at Terceira and Graciosa. According to Gaspar Frutuoso, in Saudades da Terra, this village already existed in 1522, as well as its parish church. The oldest known record of this temple dates from 1599, although the administrative and ecclesiastical institution of Prainha came much earlier. In 1572, an enormous volcanic eruption took place on a peak near the Caiado Lake, next to the parish. The extraordinary torrent of lava reached the sea and formed a great “mistério” (Azorean expression to designate a terrain of spongy lava, covered with moss and herbs), known as Prainha (Portuguese for "little beach"). This mistério located between this parish and São Roque is classified as a nature reserve. For centuries, there were no other means of communication between the various islands of the archipelago, except by sea, until in 1858, the first telephone connection was made between Lisbon and Ponta Delgada, which also helped to connect other islands. The first connections on Pico were made in the parish of Prainha, specifically on the place of Canto da Areia, which was connected to São Jorge by a cable. The small house which served as a terminal for the submarine cable is still known today as Casa do Fio (House of the Wire), and was used as a shelter for a military detachment during World War I. Geography Prainha is located on the northern coast of the municipality of São Roque do Pico, buttressed by the parishes of Santo Amaro in the east, São Roque to the west, Lajes and Ribeiras to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the north. It has an almost perfect rectangular shape, with , which corresponds to 18.3% of the municipality's total area, and is approximately from its seat. The parish has very rough topography with slopes oriented NW-SE which connect the low, coastal plain lands with the high, inland Achada Plateau reaching on Cabeço do Mistério. The territory is part of the Volcanic Complex of São Roque-Piedade. The Mistério da Prainha, a formation made up of lava flows emitted