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Gibraltar
A British limestone rock at the mouth of the Mediterranean, claimed by Spain and newly open to it
For more than three centuries the Rock of Gibraltar has been British, and for nearly all of that time Spain has asked for it back. The limestone headland guards the narrow strait between Europe and Africa, which made it one of the most coveted pieces of real estate in naval history and gave the English language a byword for solidity. Its roughly 38,000 residents have voted twice, overwhelmingly, to remain British. Their daily life, though, is bound to Spain, and in July 2026 a treaty between the United Kingdom and the European Union took down the fence that had divided the Rock from the Spanish town of La Línea since 1909. Sovereignty, by both sides' insistence, did not change.
Gibraltar is a peninsula of about 6.8 square kilometers on the southern tip of Iberia, joined to Spain by a low sandy isthmus. The Rock rises to 426 meters, honeycombed with caves and military tunnels, and its upper slopes are a nature reserve home to Barbary macaques, the only wild monkeys in Europe. Space is so scarce that the airport runway crosses the isthmus and is itself crossed by Winston Churchill Avenue, the main road to the border, which used to close whenever a plane landed or took off. Since 2023 a tunnel beneath the runway carries vehicle traffic, though pedestrians and cyclists still walk across the tarmac. The UK handles defense and foreign affairs, while an elected Gibraltar government runs internal matters.
Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar in 1704, and Spain ceded it to Britain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. Spain has sought its return ever since, and the UN lists Gibraltar as a non-self-governing territory. In 1967 residents voted to stay British, Spain closed the land border from 1969 to 1985, and in 2002 Gibraltarians rejected shared sovereignty by about 99 percent. Brexit forced new terms. A political deal reached in June 2025 became a treaty signed on 14 July 2026 and provisionally applied from the next day. It ends routine checks at the land border, places Schengen entry checks by Spanish officers at the port and airport alongside Gibraltar's own, and creates a customs union with the EU. Formal ratification by both sides was still pending in October 2026.