Algeciras Florist
Florist Algeciras Flower Shop

View from Algeciras on Algeciras Bay

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Algeciras is a port city in the south of Spain, and is the largest urban area on the Bay of Gibraltar (in Spanish, the Bahía de Algeciras). It is the busiest port in Spain. It is situated on the Río de la Miel 20 km north of Tarifa, which is the southernmost town of the Iberian peninsula and continental Europe. It has a population in 2008 of 115,333 people. It is the 28th-most populous metropolitan area in Spain
The area of the city has been populated since prehistory, and the earlies remains belong to Neanderthal populations from the Paleolithic. Due to its strategic position it was an important port under the Phoenicians, and was the site of the relevant Roman port of Portus Albus ("White Port"), with two near cities called Caetaria (most likely Iberian) and Iulia Transducta (Tarifa), founded by the Romans themselves. After being destroyed by the Germanic Barbarians and their Vandal allies, the city was founded again in 711 by the invading Moors, as the first city created by the Arabs on the occupied Spanish soil. It enjoyed a brief period of independence as a taifa state from 1035-1058. It was named al-Jazirah al-Khadra' ("Green Island") after the offshore Isla Verde; the modern name is derived from this original Arabic name (compare also Algiers and Al Jazeera). In 1344 the city was recoquered by Alfonso XI of Castile. It was retaken by the Moors in 1368, but was destroyed on the orders of Muhammed V of Granada. The site was subsequently abandoned.