The Canary Islands volcanic complex is studied in terms of coda wave attenuation. A multiple lapse time window method, based on the hypothesis of multiple isotropic scattering with uniform distribution of scatterers, is applied to the available seismic data in order to obtain the intrinsic absorption (Qi-1) and the scattering attenuation (Qs-1) in the Canarian lithosphere. The analysis is performed for two hypocentral distance ranges: from 0 to 80 km and from 0 to 140 km. Results show that in both cases and for all the studied frequency bands (1--2, 2--4, 6--8 and 8--10 Hz) intrinsic absorption dominates. The low albedos found in the region indicate the low degree of heterogeneity in the Canarian lithosphere at the scale length of the studied frequencies. On the other hand the coda attenuation (Qc-1) calculated on the basis of the single-scattering theory gives values near Qi-1 for low frequencies and near the total attenuation (Qt-1) for high frequencies. The degree of frequency dependence of the attenuation parameters is strong in all cases. A correlation of the observed attenuation parameters with the geological evidence for a hotspot-type archipelago and with other geophysical studies is suggested. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union