World Olive Tree Day
Date Updated: 21/11/2022
For thousands of years the Olive tree has been a symbol of peace and harmony. It's important not just to the countries where it grows but to communities all over the world. The olive branch appears on the national flags of seven different nations and the flag of the United Nations.
The aim of Unesco’s World Olive Tree Day (which is held every year on November 26th) is to encourage the protection of the olive tree and to reinforce the values it represents.
Scroll on to discover where the oldest, most beautiful olive trees can be found …
Image by Anna Khomutova on Pexels
Cultivating olive trees is a growing necessity as the world adapts to climate change - they are known for being highly drought tolerant and can thrive in harsh conditions. Not only that, but they are also resistant to decay and of course provide us with olives and a wondrous oil that’s used for all sorts of different purposes.
Spain has olive groves scattered over almost the entire country; the largest concentration can be found in the southernmost region of Andalucía. In the Northeast lies the ‘Mar de Olivas’ or Sea of Olives. But it’s the area of la Senia in Valencia that has been credited with having the highest concentration of ancient olive trees. Located near the Via Augusta, the Roman Road that connected Cadiz to Rome, this part of the Iberian Peninsula was the biggest cultivator of olive oil in the Roman Empire.
The Natural Museum of the thousand-year-old olive trees of Arion is a great place to visit, the olive trees here have been greeting travellers for many years.
Image by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash
In Mallorca the Can Det tree has been awarded the national prize for ‘Best Monumental Olive Tree’, not just for its mighty age and size (its trunk measures more than six metres) but for the way it has been cared for by its owners who have used the same traditional methods to produce olive oil since 1561! It is signposted with a beautiful olive wood sign and situated on a walking route between ancestral dry-stone terraces where olives have been grown for centuries.
Image by Mattia Verga on Pexels
Puglia has a staggering sixty million olive trees and it’s estimated that four million of these are over a thousand years old. They are hugely valuable to the region and as such, are treated like royalty. They produce almost half the total global amount of olive oil each year.
Some people are choosing to include the olive harvest in their visits to Puglia, immersing themselves in family life and traditional harvesting methods. But if you just want to enjoy the beauty of Italian olive trees, we suggest heading to Masseria Il Frantoio for the ‘Cinema in the South’ event – a temporary screen is set up in the ancient millennial olive grove so you can relax and watch a movie under the stars.
Image by Don Fontijn on Unsplash
The main producing areas for olives in Greece are Crete and the Peloponnese and over 350,000 Greek families work in olive tree cultivation.
The ancient olive tree of Vouves is located in the village of Ano Vouves on the island of Crete and is believed to be the oldest olive tree in the world at somewhere between three thousand and five thousand years old. The trunk circumference is twelve metres, and it still produces fruit - its olives are highly prized. In Ancient Greece, a person could be fined for digging up olive trees, even on their own land.
Image by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash
Olive trees were introduced to France some 2,500 years ago by the Phocaeans and olive groves are now abundant in Provence as the climate is similar to other growing areas around the Mediterranean. While Provence is not a front runner in terms of quantity – its three million olive trees puts it in twelfth position worldwide – in terms of quality, it's considered to be one of the best.
Amazing trees are recognized in France by the ‘Arbre Remarquable' association who award a special label to trees of great age, size and interest. Their goal is to highlight the importance of special trees to the people living in their surroundings and also to protect the cultural heritage that trees can represent. At two thousand years of age, an olive tree in Alpes-Maritimes in Provence has been listed for its multiple trunks and enormous circumference of twenty-three metres! This beautiful tree was almost cut down in the early nineteen hundreds, but a minister named Gabriel Hanotaux bought the parcel of land to save the tree.
“People who live among Olive Trees tell you their air is pure and their lives are full. On her 121st birthday, Jeanne Calment of Arles, France, had a simple answer when asked how she survived to be the world’s oldest living person: olive oil. It appears in nearly every meal she eats and each day she rubs it into her skin, ‘I only have one wrinkle’ she said ‘and I’m sitting on it!’”
– Extract from Mort Rosenblum, ‘Olives: The life and lore of a noble fruit’.
Salt-Water sandals have been around a long time, but are not as old as some of these olive trees! Back in the 1940’s when the first model was made from bits of scrap leather off the factory floor, the Salt-Water Original in tan was born. Today Salt-Waters come in a range of beautiful colours, one of our newest being ‘Olive’. This deep, earthy green is a calm, neutral tone that fits easily into your summer wardrobe but also looks great with a pair of woolly tights in Autumn. Check out the range here.
Cultivating olive trees is a growing necessity as the world adapts to climate change - they are known for being highly drought tolerant and can thrive in harsh conditions. Not only that, but they are also resistant to decay and of course provide us with olives and a wondrous oil that’s used for all sorts of different purposes.
Spain has olive groves scattered over almost the entire country; the largest concentration can be found in the southernmost region of Andalucía. In the Northeast lies the ‘Mar de Olivas’ or Sea of Olives. But it’s the area of la Senia in Valencia that has been credited with having the highest concentration of ancient olive trees. Located near the Via Augusta, the Roman Road that connected Cadiz to Rome, this part of the Iberian Peninsula was the biggest cultivator of olive oil in the Roman Empire.
The Natural Museum of the thousand-year-old olive trees of Arion is a great place to visit, the olive trees here have been greeting travellers for many years.
Image by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash
In Mallorca the Can Det tree has been awarded the national prize for ‘Best Monumental Olive Tree’, not just for its mighty age and size (its trunk measures more than six metres) but for the way it has been cared for by its owners who have used the same traditional methods to produce olive oil since 1561! It is signposted with a beautiful olive wood sign and situated on a walking route between ancestral dry-stone terraces where olives have been grown for centuries.
Image by Mattia Verga on Pexels
Puglia has a staggering sixty million olive trees and it’s estimated that four million of these are over a thousand years old. They are hugely valuable to the region and as such, are treated like royalty. They produce almost half the total global amount of olive oil each year.
Some people are choosing to include the olive harvest in their visits to Puglia, immersing themselves in family life and traditional harvesting methods. But if you just want to enjoy the beauty of Italian olive trees, we suggest heading to Masseria Il Frantoio for the ‘Cinema in the South’ event – a temporary screen is set up in the ancient millennial olive grove so you can relax and watch a movie under the stars.
Image by Don Fontijn on Unsplash
The main producing areas for olives in Greece are Crete and the Peloponnese and over 350,000 Greek families work in olive tree cultivation.
The ancient olive tree of Vouves is located in the village of Ano Vouves on the island of Crete and is believed to be the oldest olive tree in the world at somewhere between three thousand and five thousand years old. The trunk circumference is twelve metres, and it still produces fruit - its olives are highly prized. In Ancient Greece, a person could be fined for digging up olive trees, even on their own land.
Image by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash
Olive trees were introduced to France some 2,500 years ago by the Phocaeans and olive groves are now abundant in Provence as the climate is similar to other growing areas around the Mediterranean. While Provence is not a front runner in terms of quantity – its three million olive trees puts it in twelfth position worldwide – in terms of quality, it's considered to be one of the best.
Amazing trees are recognized in France by the ‘Arbre Remarquable' association who award a special label to trees of great age, size and interest. Their goal is to highlight the importance of special trees to the people living in their surroundings and also to protect the cultural heritage that trees can represent. At two thousand years of age, an olive tree in Alpes-Maritimes in Provence has been listed for its multiple trunks and enormous circumference of twenty-three metres! This beautiful tree was almost cut down in the early nineteen hundreds, but a minister named Gabriel Hanotaux bought the parcel of land to save the tree.
“People who live among Olive Trees tell you their air is pure and their lives are full. On her 121st birthday, Jeanne Calment of Arles, France, had a simple answer when asked how she survived to be the world’s oldest living person: olive oil. It appears in nearly every meal she eats and each day she rubs it into her skin, ‘I only have one wrinkle’ she said ‘and I’m sitting on it!’”
– Extract from Mort Rosenblum, ‘Olives: The life and lore of a noble fruit’.
Salt-Water sandals have been around a long time, but are not as old as some of these olive trees! Back in the 1940’s when the first model was made from bits of scrap leather off the factory floor, the Salt-Water Original in tan was born. Today Salt-Waters come in a range of beautiful colours, one of our newest being ‘Olive’. This deep, earthy green is a calm, neutral tone that fits easily into your summer wardrobe but also looks great with a pair of woolly tights in Autumn. Check out the range here.
Share this article
Back to Journal