Spain looks pretty normal when you look
at it on a map, but things begin to get
very strange when you zoom in just a
little closer. There seems to be a lot of
land that's part of Spain that's on the
wrong continent across the Mediterranean
Sea in Africa. That's not a mistake, and
the north coast of Africa is actually
dotted with several little exclaves of
Spain that are surrounded by Morocco.
How did this weird situation come to be?
The short answer is that after the Reconquista,
when Spain reconquered
the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors,
the Spanish took it just a little further
and invaded Africa and took over a bunch
of cities. Some of these cities and
territories have since been returned to
Morocco, but the ones that remain today
have for the most part been occupied by
Spain for around 500 years, a longer time
that some cities in mainland Spain like
Barcelona, which used to be briefly a
part of France. All of this has caused a
lot of problems with Morocco, who
continues to claim all of this land
today, which for the most part is a bunch
of unimportant islands off the coast. But
three places are actually physically
part of the mainland African continent.
The first of these is located here on
the coast, and it's called Peñón de Vélez
de la Gomera. This big rock here and this
smaller rock over here are both part of
Spain, and everything else starting at
this point in the sandy beach is Morocco.
This photo can get us a better
visualization of how strange a situation
this really is. The border right here
that separates the two countries is only
80 meters wide, which makes it the
shortest international border anywhere
in the world.
Moving on past this oddity we arrive at
Melilla, a Spanish city located on the
African coast that is surrounded by
Morocco. There are 78,000 people that live
here, surrounded by a 6-meter high border
fence built around the entire exclave to
separate the land from Morocco. Since
Melilla is a part of Spain and Spain is a
member of the European Union, the city of
Melilla is also part of the European Union.
Together with the other Spanish city in
Africa named Ceuta, these mark the
only places where the European Union
actually exists on the African continent.
The city of Melilla uses Euros as their
currency just like any other part of
Spain would, and the same can be said of
Ceuta, the twin sister of Melilla, also
located in Africa just a little further
up the coast. In fact, this entire picture
doesn't make a lot of sense when you add
in the correct borders. You have Spain
here and Morocco over here of course, but
you also have Spain here, the United
Kingdom gets thrown back on this side
and you also have Spain again on this
island over here.
This part of Spain is named Ceuta and is
a little smaller than Melilla with a
population of 76,000 people.
The city is also bordered away from Morocco
by a 6-meter high wall, but unlike Melilla,
there is no airport within the city, so
the only way to get from this part of
Spain to the other parts of Spain is by
boat. There is one single road that goes
through the tall border wall that
connects the city to Morocco, so other
than that the city is pretty isolated
from everything that's around it, but
just a little further up the coast is
this awkward island named Isla Perejil.
It's claimed by both Spain and
Morocco and is totally uninhabited, but
12 Moroccan soldiers invaded the island
back in 2002 and planted a Moroccan flag.
This sparked an international crisis
that saw the Arab League backing
morocco while NATO and the European
Union backed up Spain. Several warships
actually surrounded the island and the
Spanish launched a counter assault with
some commandos and arrested the 12
Moroccan soldiers. This all happened in
the name of this rock which has since
been declared a no-man zone by both
sides and nobody is allowed on it for
the foreseeable future. Moving across the
sea to Europe is this other awkward
situation named Gibraltar, which is
actually part of the United Kingdom. It's
been like that ever since 1704, when an
Anglo-Dutch invasion force captured the
Peninsula as part of the War of the
Spanish Succession, and Spain formally
ceded it to Britain later in 1713 when the
peace treaty was signed that ended that
war.
Spain has continued to claim it pretty
much ever since, and that may get even
more awkward in the future, now that the
United Kingdom has voted to leave the
European Union, which also means that
Gibraltar would leave the European
Union. This will create a land border
between the EU and the United Kingdom in
mainland Europe, and probably severely
limit the ability of people to move back
and forth from Gibraltar compared with
today. For a final strange situation we
just need to move a little further north
to the border with France, specifically
on this river which divides the two
countries. In the middle of this river is
Pheasant Island, which depending on what
time of year it is could belong to
either Spain or France and nobody is
allowed to visit. The island is a part of
Spain for six months every year and a
part of France for the other six months
complete with a ceremony that formerly
transfers the sovereignty of the island
between the two countries. This odd
situation all began back in 1659, where
the island was the site of the signing
of the Treaty of the Pyrenees which
finally ended the Thirty Years' War.
At the time the island was considered
neutral ground since it was in the
middle of the river that divided the two
countries, and ever since the treaty was
signed there in 1659, the ceremonies have
been happening every six months that
alternate ownership of the island. That
means that since 1659, the island has
changed hands between Spain and France
over 700 times and is still counting.
Another consequence of this treaty in
1659 was this situation a little further
north into France, where you can find a
tiny chunk of Spain that is completely
surrounded by France. This place today is
called Llívia, but the treaty in 1659
ceded all of this territory from Spain
to France, but because Llívia was
considered an important city at the time,
it was allowed to remain a part of Spain.
The situation hasn't really changed much
ever since then, and Llívia is separated
from the rest of Spain by this 1.6
kilometre long French corridor. There
are a lot of other really strange
borders out there in the world, but
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