Algeciras

Algeciras’s site was also that of Roman cities called Portus Albus ("White Harbor"), Caetaria (current Getares) and Iulia Traducta. In the later "Byzantine" period, the site would come to be known in Greek as "Mesopotamenoi," meaning "between rivers/canals"; the later invading Arabs translated it to "al-Djazirat". "Al-Djazirat" gave the modern Spanish "Algeciras".[3]

The area of the city has been populated since prehistory, and the earliest remains belong to Neanderthal populations from the Paleolithic era.

Due to its strategic position it was an important port under the Phoenicians, and was the site of the relevant Roman port of Portus Albus ("White Port"), with two nearby cities called Caetaria (most likely Iberians) and Iulia Transducta, founded by the Romans.[4] Recently it has been proposed that the site of Iulia Transducta was the Villa Vieja of Algeciras.[5][6]

After being destroyed by the Goths and their Vandal allies, the city was founded again in April 711 by the invading Moors, as the first city created by the Amazigh (Berbers) on the occupied Spanish soil.[7]

In the year 859 AD Viking troops on board 62 drekars and commanded by the leaders Hastein and Björn Ironside besieged the city for three days and subsequently laid waste to much of it. After looting the houses of the rich, they burnt the Aljama mosque and the Banderas mosque. Reorganized near the medina, the inhabitants managed to recover the city and make the invaders run away, capturing two boats.

It enjoyed a brief period of independence as a taifa state from 1035 to 1058. It was named al-Jazirah al-Khadra' ("Green Island") after the offshore Isla Verde; the modern name is derived from this original Arabic name (compare also Algiers and Al Jazeera). In 1055 Emir Al-Mutadid of Seville drove the Berbers from Algeciras, claiming it for Arabs.

In 1278, Algeciras was besieged by the forces of the Kingdom of Castile under the command of Alfonso X of Castile and his son, Sancho IV.[8] This siege was the first of a series of attempts to take the city and ended in failure for the Castilian forces. An armada sent by Castile was also annihilated whilst trying to blockade the city's harbor.

Statue in Algeciras of King Alfonso XI of Castille, who conquered the city in 1344.

After many centuries of Muslim rule, the tide of the reconquista arrived at Algeciras. In July 1309 Ferdinand IV of Castile laid siege to Algeciras as well as Gibraltar.[8] The latter fell into Christian hands, but Muslim Algeciras held on for the following three decades, until Alfonso XI of Castile resumed its siege. Juan Núñez de Lara, Juan Manuel, Pedro Fernández de Castro, Juan Alfonso de la Cerda, lord of Gibraleón all participated in the siege, as did knights from France, England and Germany, and even King Philip III of Navarre, king consort of Navarra, who came accompanied by 100 horsemen and 300 infantry. In March 1344, after several years of siege, Algeciras surrendered.[4]

On winning the city, Alfonso XI made it the seat of a new diocese, established by Pope Clement VI's bull Gaudemus et exultamus of 30 April 1344, and entrusted to the governance of the bishop of Cadiz.[9] The bishops of Cadiz continued to hold the title of Aliezira, as it called, until 1851, when in accordance with a concordat between Spain and the Holy See its territory was incorporated into the diocese of Cadiz. No longer a residential bishopric, Aliezira is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[10]

The city was retaken by the Moors in 1368. It was destroyed on the orders of Muhammed V of Granada.[11] The site was subsequently abandoned, but was refounded in 1704 by refugees from Gibraltar following the territory's capture by Anglo-Dutch forces in the War of the Spanish Succession. It was fortified to guard against British raids with installations such as the Fuerte de Isla Verde built to guard key points. the city was rebuilt on its present rectangular plan by Charles III of Spain in 1760. In July 1801, the French and Spanish navies fought the British Royal Navy offshore in the Battle of Algeciras, which ended in a British victory.[12]

The city became the scene for settling a major international crisis as it hosted the Algeciras Conference in 1906. The international forum to discuss the future of Morocco which was held in the Casa Consistorial (town hall). It confirmed the independence of Morocco against threats from Germany, and gave France control of banking and police interests.[13][14] In July 1942 Italian frogmen set up in a secret base in the Italian tanker Olterra, which was interned in Algeciras, in order to attack shipping in Gibraltar.[15] During the Franco era, Algeciras underwent substantial industrial development, creating many new jobs for the local workers made unemployed when the border between Gibraltar and Spain was sealed by Franco between 1969 and 1982.

In 1982 there was a failed plan codenamed Operation Algeciras conceived by the Argentinian military to sabotage the British military facilities in Gibraltar during the Falklands War. The Spanish authorities intervened just before the attack, and deported the two Argentine Montoneros and military liaison officer involved.[16]

Playa de Getares in Algeciras (es)

Algeciras is principally a transport hub and industrial city. Its main activities are connected with the port, which serves as the main embarkation point between Spain and Tangier and other ports in Morocco as well as the Canary Islands and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. It is ranked as the 16th busiest port in the world. The city also has a substantial fishing industry and exports a range of agricultural products from the surrounding area, including cereals, tobacco and farm animals.

• Port of Algeciras

In recent years it has become a significant tourist destination, with popular day trips to Tarifa to see bird migrations; to Gibraltar to see the territory's sights and culture; and to the Bay of Gibraltar on whale watching excursions.

Algeciras is the southern terminus of two principal north–south Euroroutes, the E05 and E15. Both routes, moreover, run to Scotland (the E05 terminates at Greenock and the E15 at Inverness) via France and England.

Algeciras has a subtropical climate with very mild, rainy winters and warm, dry summers with occasional heat waves, and temperature fluctuations are small because of the strong Oceanic influence. There aren't snow registers in the city since the 19th century.[17]

Plaza Alta.

Places of interest include:

• Parque Natural del Estrecho
• Parque Natural Los Alcornocales

Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Europa

Elaborate bench in Plaza Alta.

• Hornos Romanos del Rinconcillo (first century B.C.). (furnaces)
• Factoría de salazones de la calle San Nicolás (first century). (salt meat factory)
• La Villa Vieja, torres de la Huerta del Carmen (tenth century). (Towers)
• Parque Arqueológico de las Murallas Meriníes (thirteenth century). (Archeological Park)
• Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Europa (1690). (Chapel)
• Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Palma (1736). (Church)
• Hospital de La Caridad, (1748).
• Capilla de la Caridad (1752). (Chapel)
• Casa Consistorial (1756). (City Council)
• Capilla de San Servando (1774). (Chapel)
• Capilla del Santo Cristo de la Alameda (1776). (Chapel)
• Plaza Alta (1807).
• Mercado de Abastos de Algeciras of engineer Eduardo Torroja Miret (1935). (Supplies Market)
• Art School Building. (1971) architect: Fernando Garrido Gutiérrez.
• Faro de Isla Verde. Project of Jaime Font, constructed in 1864. (Light)
• Hotel Reina Cristina (1901).
• District de San Isidro, typical district designed in the twentieth century.

• Arrastre de latas (5, January).
• Feria Real de Algeciras (June).
• Fiestas patronales en honor de Ntra. Sra. la Virgen de la Palma (August).
• Fiesta de los Tosantos (1, November).
• Carnival of Algeciras.

Algeciras CF at the Estadio Nuevo Mirador.

Algeciras CF, the association football club, founded in 1912, plays usually in the third-tier Segunda División B, with past spells in the lower Tercera Division and the higher Segunda División. They play home games at the Estadio Nuevo Mirador.

Algeciras BM, the professionnal handball club, played in the Liga ASOBAL between 2005 and 2008. The team was dissolved due to enormous debts after relegation to second level in 2008.

• Paco de Lucía
• Ramón de Algeciras
• Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir
• Ana Belén Palomo
• Cristóbal Delgado Gómez
• José María Sánchez-Verdú
• Álvaro Morte
• Canelita

Los Alcornocales Natural Park

• Ceuta, Spain
• Neda, Spain
• Dakhla, Western Sahara

• Algeciras. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2006.
• Algeciras. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2004
• Lonely Planet Andalucia, Lonely Planet, 2005

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Algeciras.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Algeciras.

• (in Spanish) Ayuntamiento de Algeciras
• (in Spanish) Expoalgeciras: Images Gallery (History and present from Algeciras with old and current photographs)