Bizarre Borders - Spain in Africa?

Samanyu Ram

April 28, 2023

When you think of Spain, some things that may come up are soccer, or as they would call it, futbol, colonies, and Paella. When we think of where Spain is geographically, we point directly to Europe and its influential culture on European society. Spain is transcontinental, with land in Europe and Africa. 

The three plots of land in Africa, Morocco to be more specific, consist of two cities and a clump of rocks with some houses. Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera is the smallest of the three plots at a measly 4.7 acres large. It is a peninsula of two large rock structures that are connected to Morocco by an 80-meter-long border. The next of the three is Melilla, a Spanish city surrounded by Morocco and the Mediterranean, home to about 85,000 people. Believe it or not, there is actually a 20-foot-high fence surrounding Melilla. Melilla spans across an area of almost five square miles and boasts influential Jewish and Hindu communities. The GDP of Melilla alone is 1.6 billion Euros, with a GDP per capita of close to 20,000 Euros. Melilla is home to an airport and the principal industry is the fishing industry. Melilla is one of two Spanish cities in Africa, the other one being Ceuta. Since Spain is a part of the European Union and these are Spanish cities, the official currency of both is the Euro. Ceuta also has a population of roughly 85,000 and a land area of 7.1 square miles. Similarly to Melilla, Ceuta has a border fence surrounding the city which is 20 feet high. However, unlike Melilla, Ceuta does not house an airport within its walls, so the only way to reach mainland Spain is by boat. Ceuta houses a population mainly consisting of Christians and Muslims, but it also has Sephardic Jews and Sindhi Hindus. These groups likely came from Pakistan decades ago. 

The situation of Melilla, Ceuta, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera is one of the many examples of bizarre borders caused by European colonization. Speaking of Spain, the United Kingdom has a small piece of overseas territory that borders Spain, completely detached from the mainland of England but apart from mainland Spain. Gibraltar is located on the Southern coast of Spain and is less than 20 miles from Africa. Gibraltar is quite a confusing, but interesting story, so we'll have to save that for next week's edition of Bizarre Borders