Algeciras in the context of "Capture of Gibraltar"

Gibraltar (/dʒɪˈbrɔːltər/ jih-BRAWL-tər, Spanish: [xiβɾalˈtaɾ]) is a British Overseas Territory and city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean (Strait of Gibraltar). It has an area of 6.8 km (2.6 sq mi) and is bordered to the north by Spain (Campo de Gibraltar). The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar, at the foot of which is a densely populated town area. Gibraltar is home to around 34,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.

Gibraltar was founded as a permanent watchtower by the Almohads in 1160. It switched control between the Nasrids, Castilians and Marinids in the Late Middle Ages, acquiring larger strategic clout upon the destruction of nearby Algeciras c. 1375. It became again part of the Crown of Castile in 1462. In 1704, Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession, and it was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It became an important base for the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars and World War II, as it controlled the narrow entrance and exit to the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, with half the world's seaborne trade passing through it.

The Bay of Gibraltar, also known as Bay of Algeciras, is a bay at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. It is around 10 km (6.2 mi) long by 8 km (5.0 mi) wide, covering an area of some 75 km (29 sq mi), with a depth of up to 400 m (1,300 ft) in the centre of the bay. It opens to the south into the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea.

The shoreline is densely settled. From west to east, the shore is divided between the Spanish municipalities of Algeciras, Los Barrios, San Roque, La Línea de la Concepción and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The larger part of the shoreline is Spanish territory, with part of the eastern half of the bay belonging to Gibraltar.

Campo de Gibraltar (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkampo ðe xiβɾalˈtaɾ]) is one of the six comarcas (county) in the province of Cádiz, Spain, in the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia, the southernmost part of mainland Europe. It comprises the municipalities of Algeciras, La Línea de la Concepción, San Roque, Los Barrios, Castellar de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, San Martín del Tesorillo and Tarifa. This comarca was established in 2003 by the Government of Andalusia.

Its name comes from the municipal territory of the town of Gibraltar, now a British Overseas Territory. Until 1704, the Campo de Gibraltar was simply the territory for the municipality of Gibraltar, about 500 km (190 sq mi) corresponding approximately to the current municipalities of Algeciras, San Roque, Los Barrios and La Línea de la Concepción. Following the capture of Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession, the former inhabitants settled nearby creating Algeciras, San Roque, and Los Barrios. In 1759, each of them was established as a different municipality.

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born at the end of the 1st century BC in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died c. AD 45.

His short work (De situ orbis libri III.) remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures." Except for the geographical parts of Pliny's Historia naturalis (where Mela is cited as an important authority), the De situ orbis is the only formal treatise on the subject in Classical Latin.

The A1, also known as the Great North Road, is the longest numbered road in the United Kingdom, at 410 miles (660 km). It connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The numbering system for A-roads, devised in the early 1920s, was based around patterns of roads radiating from two hubs at London and Edinburgh. The first number in the system, A1, was given to the most important part of that system: the road from London to Edinburgh, joining the two central points of the system and linking two of the UK's mainland capital cities. It passes through or near north London, Hatfield, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Doncaster, Pontefract, York, Wetherby, Ripon, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Dunbar, Haddington, Musselburgh, and east Edinburgh.

It was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, and for much of its route it followed various branches of the historic Great North Road, the main deviation being between Boroughbridge and Darlington. The course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, and where new alignments have taken a slightly different route. Between the North Circular Road in London and Morpeth in Northumberland, the road is a dual carriageway, several sections of which have been upgraded to motorway standard and designated A1(M). Between the M25 (near London) and the A720 (near Edinburgh) the road is part of the unsigned Euroroute E15 from Inverness to Algeciras.

The Río de la Miel is a short river in the south of Spain, emptying into the Bay of Gibraltar at Algeciras. It falls over a distance of 350 metres including some waterfalls and working water mills. As the port of Algeciras expanded, docks on the river became marooned inland, and within the town much of the river is now culverted.

The literal translation of the name is the honey river.

Iulia Traducta was a Roman city in Andalusia, Spain, on the site of the modern Algeciras.

The European route E15 is part of the United Nations international E-road network. It is a north–south "reference road", running from Inverness, Scotland south through England and France to Algeciras, Spain. Along most of its route between Paris and London, the road parallels the LGV Nord (as the French A1 autoroute) and High Speed 1 (as the English M20 motorway). Its length is 2,300 miles (3,700 km).

The Río Palmones is a river of the Province of Cádiz in Southeastern coastal Spain. Its source is in Lomas del Castaño, Sierra Blanquilla, and it flows for some 37 kilometres (23 mi) into the Bay of Gibraltar, North of the city of Algeciras, in the neighborhood of Palmones. The Battle of Río Palmones took place here in 1342.