Ceuta

• 1. Introduction

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  Ceuta covers only 18.5 square kilometres of the North African coast, yet it is a Spanish city, and the Spanish mainland lies just 17 km away across the Strait of Gibraltar. Its shoreline sits where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, and its only land neighbour is Morocco. Ceuta is an autonomous city of Spain and also part of the territory of the European Union. How did a city with a Phoenician beginning end up flying a Spanish flag on another continent? Why has it passed through so many hands, from Rome and Byzantium to caliphs and kings? And what is it like to live in a place that two countries both call their own?

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• 2. Pillars And Brothers

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  Jebel Musa, the mountain beside Ceuta, appears in ancient Greek and Latin writing under many spellings of the name Abyla. In Latin it became Abyla Mons, "Mount Abyla", or Abyla Columna, "the Pillar of Abyla". Some scholars have called Abyla a Punic name meaning "Lofty Mountain" or "Mountain of God". The mountain's real name was Habenna, meaning "Stone" or "Stele", or else Abin-hiq, "Rock of the Bay", after the nearby Bay of Benzú. Jebel Musa is the southern Pillar of Hercules.

  Seven hills around the settlement below the mountain gave the town its lasting name, the "Seven Brothers". The Roman stronghold there was called Castellum ad Septem Fratres, or "Fort at the Seven Brothers". Over time that was clipped to Septem, and occasionally Septum or Septa. Berber speakers said Sebta, Arabic speakers said Sabtah, and in Portuguese and Spanish the word finally became Ceuta.

  Phoenicians set up an outpost here early in the 1st millennium BC. They saw that a very narrow isthmus joined the Peninsula of Almina to the African mainland, which made the place easy to defend. Their other harbours nearby included Kart, at what is now San Roque, plus the ports that became Tangiers and Cádiz. Beside Jebel Musa stood Calpe, the other Pillar of Hercules, now called the Rock of Gibraltar.

  After Carthage fell in the Punic Wars, the Romans left most of northwest Africa to the client states of Numidia and Mauretania. Punic culture kept thriving in Septem. As late as the reign of Augustus, most of its Berber residents still spoke and wrote in Punic. Rome moved to annex North Africa directly after the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC.

  In AD 40 Caligula assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy and seized his kingdom. Claudius organised it in AD 42, placing Septem in the province of Tingitana and raising it to the status of a colony. The town grew Roman in character and prospered into the late 3rd century. Its salted fish became famous, and it traded heavily with Roman Spain. Roads linked it by land to Tingis, which is now Tangiers, and to Volubilis. In the late 4th century, under Theodosius I, Septem still held 10,000 people, nearly all Christian citizens who spoke African Romance, a local dialect of Latin.

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• 3. Empires Of The Strait

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  Around 425 the Vandals crossed the strait near Tingis, probably invited by Count Boniface, who wanted protection against the empress dowager Galla Placidia. They swiftly overran Roman North Africa. Their king, Gaiseric, cared most about the rich land around Carthage, and he soon lost Tingis and Septem to Berber revolts. Around 533 the general Belisarius, serving the emperor Justinian, made Septem the westernmost outpost of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines pushed little into the interior, so they chose the more defensible Septem as their regional capital instead of Tingis.

  Epidemics, weaker successors and stretched supply lines left Septem isolated. Its count, called the comes, was probably forced to pay homage to the Visigoth Kingdom in Spain in the early 7th century. No reliable contemporary account describes how the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb ended around 710. Instead, the swift Muslim conquest of Spain produced romances about Count Julian of Septem. In the stories he betrayed Christendom to avenge the dishonour done to his daughter at the court of King Roderick. Allegedly with Julian's encouragement, Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber convert and freedman, led his garrison from Tangiers across the strait. He and his master, Musa bin Nusayr, then fell afoul of a jealous caliph, who stripped them of wealth and titles.

  Berber converts to Islam took direct control of the town and called it Sebta. Around 740 it was destroyed in their great revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate. For a time it was a small village of Muslims and Christians among ruins. In the 9th century Majkas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, resettled it and began the short-lived Banu Isam dynasty. In 931 his great-grandson abdicated in favour of Abd ar-Rahman III, the Umayyad emir of Córdoba, who had proclaimed himself caliph in 929. Taking Ceuta in 931 and Melilla in 927 let Córdoba project power along the fragmented North African coast.

  When the Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in the early 11th century, the Banu Hammud built a petty kingdom, the Taifa of Málaga, with Málaga as capital and Ceuta housing the heir's residence. In 1056 the Banu Ziri conquered Málaga and cut that link. Suqut al-Bargawati stayed in power in Ceuta and styled himself a caliph after 1061. From 1084 the Almoravid Berbers ruled the region until the Almohads conquered it in 1147. Ibn Hud rebelled in 1232, and the Tunisian Hafsids later took control until Ceuta's inhabitants expelled them in 1249. Years of instability followed, with the Marinids and Granada competing and the native Banu al-Azafi ruling on their own. Fez conquered the region in 1387 with help from Aragon, and within three decades a Portuguese fleet would arrive.

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• 4. Portuguese Years

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  On the morning of the 21st of August 1415, King John I of Portugal led his sons and their assembled forces in a surprise assault. About 45,000 Portuguese sailed on 200 ships, caught the defenders off guard and lost only eight men. By nightfall the town was taken, and on the morning of the 22nd of August Ceuta was in Portuguese hands. Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches, was asked to raise the banner that became Ceuta's flag. It matches the flag of Lisbon with a coat of arms derived from the Portuguese crown added at the centre, and the modern flag keeps that shield.

  John's son Henry the Navigator was wounded in the fighting. The plunder disappointed the king, so he decided to keep the city and pursue further ventures in the region. Pedro de Meneses served as the first governor, from 1415 to 1437. In 1419 the Marinid Sultanate laid siege, and Meneses beat them back before reinforcements arrived. Those reinforcements were John, Constable of Portugal, and his brother Henry the Navigator.

  Under John's son Duarte, Ceuta quickly became a drain on the Portuguese treasury. Trans-Saharan trade went to Tangier instead, and it became clear that holding Ceuta without Tangier was worthless. In 1437 Henry and his brother Fernando, the Saint Prince, persuaded Duarte to attack the Marinid sultanate. The Battle of Tangier, led by Henry, was a total failure. To let the Portuguese army depart unharmed, Henry promised to hand Ceuta back to the Marinids, and then he refused to do so.

  Ceuta stood alone for 43 years. Then the Portuguese took Ksar es-Seghir in 1458, followed by Arzila and Tangier in 1471, and the city's position was secure. Holding it pushed Portugal further along the Maghreb coast, a land of grain, cattle, sugar and textiles, as well as fish, hides, wax and honey. The Treaty of Alcáçovas in 1479 and the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 both recognised Ceuta as Portuguese.

  In the 1540s the Portuguese began building the Royal Walls of Ceuta in the form seen today, with bastions, a navigable moat and a drawbridge. The bastions of Coraza Alta, Bandera and Mallorquines still stand. The poet Luís de Camões lived in Ceuta between 1549 and 1551. He lost his right eye in battle there, and the loss influenced his poem Os Lusíadas.

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• 5. Turning Spanish

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  In 1578 King Sebastian of Portugal died without descendants at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, also called the Battle of Three Kings, in what is now northern Morocco. His grand-uncle, Cardinal Henry, succeeded him but had no heirs either, having taken holy orders. When the cardinal-king died two years later, three grandchildren of King Manuel I claimed the throne. They were Infanta Catarina, Duchess of Braganza, António, Prior of Crato, and Philip II of Spain. Philip prevailed and was crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1581, uniting the two crowns and their overseas empires.

  During the union with Spain, from 1580 to 1640, Ceuta drew many residents of Spanish origin. When Portugal regained its independence in the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640, Ceuta became the only city of the Portuguese Empire to side with Spain. On the 1st of January 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal recognised the city's allegiance to Spain. By the Treaty of Lisbon he ceded it to King Carlos II of Spain.

  Moroccan forces under Moulay Ismail besieged Ceuta from 1694 to 1727, in what is called the longest siege in history. Most fighting centred on the Royal Walls, but the Spanish also made small raids along the Moroccan coast and seized shipping in the Strait of Gibraltar. Over those decades the city lost its Portuguese character.

  During the Napoleonic Wars, from 1803 to 1815, Spain let Britain occupy Ceuta. The occupation began in 1810, and the city was returned when the wars ended. Disputes over the border then led to the Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859-60, which ended at the Battle of Tetuán.

  In July 1936 General Francisco Franco took command of the Spanish Army of Africa and rebelled against the republican government. That uprising began the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. Franco moved troops to mainland Spain by airlift, using transport aircraft supplied by Germany and Italy. Ceuta was among the first battlegrounds. Franco's rebel nationalist forces seized the city while republican air and sea forces fired on it. The Llano Amarillo monument to Franco was inaugurated on the 13th of July 1940. The tall obelisk is now abandoned, though the Falange and Imperial Eagle shields remain visible.

  In 1956 Spain recognised the independence of Spanish Morocco, but Ceuta and the other plazas de soberanía stayed under Spanish rule.

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• 6. Land And Sky

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  Monte Anyera dominates Ceuta's western frontier with Morocco, and a Spanish military fort guards the hill. The land border is 6.4 km long and runs along the M'diq-Fnideq Prefecture of Morocco. Across the city on the Peninsula of Almina, Monte Hacho overlooks the port. It is one of two possible sites for the southern pillar of Greek legend, and Jebel Musa is the other.

  BirdLife International has named the Ceuta Peninsula an Important Bird Area. The site is part of a migratory bottleneck at the western end of the Mediterranean, where large numbers of birds funnel between Europe and Africa. Visitors can see European honey buzzards, black kites, short-toed snake eagles, Egyptian vultures and griffon vultures. Black storks, white storks and Audouin's gulls pass through as well.

  Ceuta has a maritime-influenced Mediterranean climate, much like Tarifa, Algeciras and Tangiers nearby. The average annual temperature is 18.8 C, with yearly highs averaging 21.4 C and lows 15.7 C. Winters are mild for the latitude. Summers are warm but gentler than in the interior of southern Spain, thanks to the moderating effect of the strait. Summers are very dry, though yearly precipitation still reaches 849 mm. That total could count as a humid climate if the summers were not so arid. The Ceuta weather station behind these figures has only operated since 2003.

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• 7. Life In The City

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  In March 1995 the Statute of Autonomy turned Ceuta from an ordinary municipality of the province of Cádiz into an autonomous city. Its official Spanish name is Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta, and its rank sits between a standard municipality and an autonomous community. Like the Canary Islands, it was a free port before Spain joined the European Union in 1986, and it now runs a low-tax system. Since 1979 it has elected a 25-seat assembly every four years. Juan Jesús Vivas has been Mayor-President since 2001. The People's Party holds 18 seats, the Caballas Coalition four and the Socialist Workers' Party three. The city has 63 neighbourhoods, called barriadas, and its own police force.

  In 2024 Ceuta's population was 83,299. In 2006 roughly 50% of residents were Christian and about 48% Muslim. A 2018 estimate said around 67.8% of people living there were born in Ceuta. Spanish is the official language, and Moroccan Arabic, known as Darija, is widely spoken. A small Sephardic Jewish community lives there too. A small Hindu community has existed since 1893, linked to Gibraltar's, and after the Partition of India in 1947 many Sindhi Hindus from present-day Pakistan settled in the city.

  Christianity has been present in Ceuta continuously since late antiquity. Evidence includes the ruins of a basilica downtown and accounts of the martyrdom of St. Daniel Fasanella and his Franciscans in 1227, under the Almohads. The town's Grand Mosque had been built over a Byzantine-era church. When the Portuguese conquered the city in 1415, they converted that mosque into Ceuta Cathedral. Its present form comes from refurbishments in the late 17th century, mixing baroque and neoclassical elements, and it was dedicated to St Mary of the Assumption in 1726. Since 2010 Ceuta and Melilla have marked the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha as an official public holiday. That was the first official celebration of a non-Christian religious festival in Spanish-ruled territory since the Reconquista.

  Ceuta has also produced a few striking figures. Muhammad al-Idrisi, born there in 1100, lived in Palermo at the court of King Roger II of Sicily and is known for the Tabula Rogeriana. The footballer José Martínez Sánchez, nicknamed Pirri, played 561 competitive games for Real Madrid and scored 172 goals. Nayim scored a last-minute goal for Real Zaragoza in the 1995 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final. África de las Heras, born in Ceuta in 1909, became a Spanish Communist and a naturalised Soviet citizen. She died in Moscow in 1988, and she worked as a KGB spy under the code name Patria.

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• 8. Border And Dispute

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  Every day thousands of Moroccan women carry goods across the frontier as porteadoras, taking advantage of Ceuta's tax-free status. The trade runs in Moroccan dirhams even though prices are marked in euros. The city's economy otherwise rests on its port, which is expanding, and on industrial and retail centres. Lidl, Decathlon and El Corte Inglés have branches there, and there is a casino. Ferries connect the port to Algeciras several times a day. A single road checkpoint near Fnideq lets cars and pedestrians cross into Morocco, and pedestrians can also cross between Benzú and Belyounech. The rest of the border is closed.

  Double fences 6 m high surround the territory, and hundreds of migrants gather near them, waiting for a chance to cross. The fences are regularly stormed by people hoping to claim asylum once they are inside. The Civil Guard protects the fortified land border and the maritime approaches against frequent and sometimes significant incursions. Defence rests with the General Command of Ceuta, which includes the 54th Regulares Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Tercio Duke of Alba Regiment of the Spanish Legion. The 3rd Montesa Cavalry Regiment fields Leopard 2 main battle tanks. In 2023 the Spanish Navy replaced the patrol boat P-114 with the Rodman-class patrol boat Isla de León.

  Morocco has repeatedly demanded that Spain transfer sovereignty over Ceuta, Melilla and the plazas de soberanía. Moroccan officials often speak of the "occupied Sebtah" and call these territories colonies. Their main argument is geographical: Ceuta is an exclave with no territorial continuity with the rest of Spain. The argument was first developed by Alal-El Faasi, a founder of the Moroccan Istiqlal Party, who openly advocated invading and occupying Ceuta. Spain has never recognised the claim, and neither have most other nations. Spain's official position is that Ceuta has been an integral part of the country since the 16th century. The majority of Ceuta's people support Spanish sovereignty.

  On the 5th of November 2007, King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía visited Ceuta and Melilla. Local crowds were enthusiastic, and Morocco protested, causing a brief diplomatic conflict. No Spanish head of state had visited since 1927. On the 21st of December 2020, Moroccan Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani said Ceuta is "Moroccan as the Sahara". Spain summoned the Moroccan ambassador, Karima Benyaich, to ask for an explanation.

  Spain joined NATO in 1986, but Ceuta is not covered by the alliance's protection. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty limits its coverage to Europe, North America and islands north of the Tropic of Cancer, though French Algeria was explicitly included when France joined. Some legal experts argue that other articles could cover Spain's North African territories, but that reading has never been tested. At the 2022 Madrid summit, Spain raised the question. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg answered that "NATO is there to protect all Allies against any threats", while adding that invoking Article 5 would always be a political decision.

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