A Brief History Of Mallorca

From The Rough Guide to Mallorca and Menorca:

Southern Mallorca

Most of Southern Mallorca comprises the island's central plain, Es Pla, a fertile tract surrounded to the west by the mountainous Serra de Tramuntana and to the east by the hilly range that shadows the coast, the Serra de Llevant.

... although it may seem like a sleepy backwater, it was Es Pla that pretty much defined Mallorca until the twentieth century: the majority of the island's inhabitants lived here, it produced enough food to meet almost every domestic requirement, and Palma's gentry were reliant on Es Pla estates for their income...

This situation persisted until the 1960s, when the tourist boom stodd everything on its head and the developers simply bypassed Es Pla to focus on the picturesque coves of the east coast.

Inca and around

In medieval times, one of the few ways to escape the clutches of the island's landowners was to practise a craft and then join the appropriate guild. As early as the fifteenth century, Inca had attracted enough shoemakers to be become the centre of a flourishing shoemaking industry - and so it remains today with Camper's HQ and main factory-warehouse firmly ensconced here.