Gibraltar

The Rock sheltered some of Europe's last Neanderthals, whose traces of habitation were found in Gorham's Cave, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its name is Arabic — Jabal Tariq, "Tariq's mountain" — after the commander who landed here in 711 to launch the Muslim conquest of Iberia. Moorish and then Castilian rule followed, until an Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded it to Britain "in perpetuity", and it has been British ever since.

Gibraltar withstood the Great Siege of 1779–83 and grew into a vital Royal Navy base, central to the Napoleonic Wars — Nelson's body passed through after Trafalgar — and to the Second World War, when much of the population was evacuated and the Rock was honeycombed with tunnels. Franco's Spain sealed the land frontier completely in 1969 to pressure the territory; it reopened partially in 1982 and fully in 1985.

Gibraltarians have voted twice, in 1967 and 2002, to reject Spanish or joint sovereignty, each time by around 99 per cent. In 2016 the territory voted 96 per cent to remain in the EU, but left with the rest of the United Kingdom. After nine years of negotiation, the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the EU signed a treaty in Brussels on 14 July 2026 that removed routine controls at the frontier with Spain and brought Gibraltar into the Schengen travel area and the EU customs union; it has applied provisionally since the next day while parliaments ratify it, with the Schengen entry checks moved to Gibraltar's airport and port.

Gibraltarians — "Llanitos" — are a distinct people of Genoese, Maltese, Portuguese, Spanish, British, Jewish, and Indian descent. They speak English officially and Llanito informally, a rapid Spanish–English code-switch peppered with words from half a dozen languages. British institutions — the pound, red pillar boxes, bobbies, pubs, and Marks & Spencer — sit on top of a Mediterranean, largely Catholic daily rhythm.

Local patriotism is strong and public. National Day on 10 September fills the squares with people in red and white; the mass release of 30,000 balloons that was once its highlight ended in 2016 over concerns for marine wildlife. The religious mix is unusually broad for its size, with a long-established Sephardi Jewish community and Hindu and Muslim communities alongside the Catholic and Anglican churches.

About 38,000 people live on a densely built rock, much of it on land reclaimed from the bay. The economy runs on financial services, online gaming — many betting companies are based here — ship bunkering and repair in the busy port, and tourism, much of it day-trippers from the Costa del Sol. Taxes are low.

Thousands of workers, Spanish and other nationalities, commute across the frontier every day — they hold something like 45 per cent of all the jobs on the Rock — which makes a smooth border essential to normal life. Housing is tight and expensive, and while cars are common the territory is small enough to walk across in an hour.

Gibraltarian cooking blends Genoese, Spanish, British, and North African influences. Calentita, a baked bread-like dish of chickpea flour, olive oil and water, is the best-known local dish and gives its name to the food festival; panissa and rosto (penne in a tomato sauce with beef) are other local staples, and bollo de hornazo appears at Easter.

The pubs serve fish and chips, pies, and Sunday roasts; Spanish tapas, seafood, and tortilla are everywhere; and there is good Moroccan and Indian food. Sherry and Spanish wine come from just across the border.

The Rock itself is the attraction. The Upper Rock Nature Reserve — reached by cable car or road — takes in the Barbary macaques, the only wild monkeys in Europe; St Michael's Cave, a vast chamber used as a concert hall and a wartime hospital; the Great Siege Tunnels and the Second World War tunnels bored through the limestone; the Moorish Castle; and viewing platforms and footpaths including the Windsor Suspension Bridge, opened in 2016 across a ravine on the Royal Anglian Way, with O'Hara's Battery at the summit.

At the base, the pedestrianised Main Street runs through duty-free shops to Casemates Square, and the Gibraltar National Museum tells the story of the Neanderthal skull found here (the original went to London) and is built over the remains of a fourteenth-century Moorish bathhouse. Europa Point at the southern tip has a lighthouse, a mosque, and a clear view across the strait to the mountains of Morocco.

The airport runway that cuts across the old road into Spain is a sight in itself — cars now use the tunnel, but people on foot still walk over the tarmac between flights — and boat trips from the marina go out to watch the dolphins that live in the Bay of Gibraltar.