Ceuta

Ceuta, city, an exclave of Spain in northwestern Africa, a seaport on the Strait of Gibraltar, bordered also by Morocco. For administrative purposes Ceuta is governed as part of Cádiz Province in Spain. The city is on a headland consisting of seven peaks, at the end of a narrow isthmus. The highest of these peaks, Jebel Sidi Moussa, thought to be the ancient Abila, is one of the two Pillars of Hercules.

A military and penal station, Ceuta is on the site of a Carthaginian settlement on which a Roman colony was later built. The Vandals took it from the Romans and lost it to Byzantium. It later became successively a possession of the Visigoths and of the Arabs. The latter called it Sebta or Cibta, from which the modern name is derived. Ceuta became an important center for the manufacture of brassware and for trade in slaves, gold, and ivory under later Berber and Spanish-Moorish rulers. The Portuguese captured the city in 1415 and the Spaniards in 1580. Moors laid siege to it unsuccessfully several times, one siege lasting from 1694 to 1720. Population (2007) 76,603.