Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1704, Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne. Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Gibraltarians rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum. In a 2002 referendum, the idea of shared sovereignty was also rejected.
About Gibraltar in brief
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. It has an area of 6. 7 km2 and is bordered to the north by Spain. The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar at the foot of which is a densely populated town area, home to over 32,000 people. In 1704, Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne. Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. During the Napoleonic Wars and World War II it was an important base for the Royal Navy as it controlled the entrance and exit to the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar. Gibraltarians rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum and, in a 2002 referendum, the idea of shared sovereignty was also rejected. On 31 January 2020, the UK and Gibraltar left the European Union. Gibraltar will join the Schengen Area, to avoid a hard border with Spain and ensure fluidity of movement at the border. The name is derived from Arabic: Jabal Ṭāriq, lit. ‘Mount of Tariq’. That continues to be its name in Arabic. It is also known as Mons Calpe, a name perhaps of Phoenician origin. Gibraltar’s economy is based largely on tourism, online gambling, financial services and bunkering.
It remains strategically important, with half the world’s seaborne trade passing through the strait. There is little evidence of habitation in the Bronze Age when people had largely stopped living in caves. The Phoenicians were present for several centuries since around 950 BC, apparently using Gorham’s Cave as a shrine to the genius loci, as did the Carthaginians and Romans after them. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Gibraltar came briefly under the control of the Vandals, who crossed into Africa at the invitation of Boniface, Count of Hispania, from 414 until 711 AD. In 1160 the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mu’min al-Fathath ordered that a permanent settlement, including a castle, be built to be built. It received the name of Medinat al-fath al-Medinat, meaning ‘Tower of the Hominat’ in Arabic, but was subsequently corrupted into ‘Jabal al-Tariq’, which means ‘the Mount of Tareq’ or ‘The Mount of the Tariqu’ The name was later corrupted into Jabal al-Jabal, or Jabal Al-Jabal, and is now used as the name for the town of Almería, from which it takes its name. It was considered by the ancient Greeks and Romans as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the Greek legend of the creation of the Strait Of Gibraltar by Heracles.
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This page is based on the article Gibraltar published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 03, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
