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Home > Travel Spain > Spain Destinations > Algeciras
Algeciras
Spain, also known as Kingdom of Spain, is one of the oldest inhabited regions on the planet. It is a country which is located in Southern Europe, and politically organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is the largest sovereign nation of the three nations that make up the Iberian Peninsula. Administratively, Spain is divided into 50 provinces, grouped into 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities with a high degree of autonomy. The name Spain comes from the Latin name Hispania whose capital is Madrid which is also the largest city of the Country.
Algeciras is a city in the province of Cadiz with area of 86 square kilometers. The city was founded in 713 by the Moors, possibly on the site of an earlier Roman town known as Portus Albus. It enjoyed a brief period of indepedance as a taifa state from 1035 to 1058. It was named Green Island after the offshore Isla Verde, the modern name is derived from this original Arabic name.
Algeciras is a port city in the south of Spain, near the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on the Rio de la Miel slightly to the north of Tarifa, which is the southernmost town of peninsular Spain. Algeciras is the biggest urban area on the Bay of Gibraltar, with a population in 1999 of 103,106 people.
Algeciras is mainly a transport hub and industrial city. Its principal activities are connected with the port, which serves as the main embarkation point between Spain and Tangier and other ports in Morocco in addition to the Canary Islands and the Spanish-Moroccan enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. It is ranked as the 16th busiest port in the world. The city has a considerable fishing industry and exports a range of agricultural products from the surrounding area, including cereals, tobacco and farm animals as well.
In recent years it has become an important tourist destination, with popular day trips to Tarifa to see bird migrations, to Gibraltar, to see the territory's extraordinary sights and culture and to the Bay of Algeciras on whale watching outings. Algeciras is the southern station of two principal north-south Euroroutes, the E05 and E15. Both routes, moreover, run to Scotland through France and England.
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