Melilla
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| Capital | |||||
| Official languages | Spanish | ||||
| Area – Total – % of Spain |
Ranked 20 km² |
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| Population – Total (2006) – % of Spain – Density |
Ranked 72000 6995.55/km² |
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| Demonym – English – Spanish |
Melillan, Melillese melillense |
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Statute of Autonomy
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March 14, 1995 | ||||
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Parliamentary
– Congress seatsrepresentation – Senate seats |
2 |
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| President | Juan José Imbroda Ortíz (PP) | ||||
| ISO 3166-2 | ES-ML | ||||
| Ciudad Autónoma de Melilla | |||||
Melilla is an autonomous city of Spain located on the Mediterranean, on the North African coast. It was regarded as a part of Málaga province prior to March 14, 1995, when the city's Statute of Autonomy was passed.
Melilla was a free port before Spain joined the European Union. As of 1994 it had a population of 63,670. Its population consists of Christians, Muslims (chiefly Berber), Jews and a small minority of Hindus. Both Spanish and Tamazight are spoken. Spanish is the official language.
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Political status
Melilla is, along with Ceuta, one of the two Spanish autonomous cities.
Morocco claims Melilla, along with Ceuta and various small Spanish islands off the coast of Africa (Plazas de soberanía) that are sovereign posts. Morocco bases its claim on the fact that the area was part of the Idrisid and other succeeding Muslim dynasties from 791 until 1497, when the city was taken by Castile. The government of Morocco has also drawn comparisons with Spain's territorial claim to Gibraltar, which is a British Overseas Territory situated on the mainland of Spain. In both cases, the national governments and local populations of the contended territories reject these claims by a wide margin. Spanish sources claim that unlike the Protectorate territories included in former Spanish Morocco Melilla has been a constituent part of Spain since the very dawn of Spain as an independent country, the city being a part of Castile for longer than even other current Spanish regions such as Navarre. These sources also dispute any ties between the former Muslim dynasties ruling the city and the present day Kingdom of Morocco, noting that if those latter dynasties were to be considered most of present day Spain would be a part of Morocco too.
The history of Melilla is similar to that of Moroccan towns in the region of the Rif and southern Spanish towns, passing through Amazigh, Phoenician, Punic, Roman, Ummayyad, Idrisid, Hammudid, Almoravid, Almohad, Merinid and then Wattasid rules before being annexed by Spain five years after the latter kingdom completed the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492.
Melilla and Ceuta are the only two European-Union territories located in mainland Africa. The amateur radio call sign used for both cities is EA9.
Subdivisions
Melilla is subdivided into eight wards or neighborhoods (barrios) [1]:
- Barrio de Medina Sidonia
- Barrio del General Larrea
- Barrio del Ataque Seco
- Barrio de los Héroes de España
- Barrio del General Gómez Jordana
- Barrio del Príncipe de Asturias
- Barrio del Carmen
- Barrio del Polígono Residencial de La Paz
Economy
The principal industry is fishing; cross-border commerce (legal or smuggled) and Spanish and European grants and wages are the other income sources.
Melilla is regularly connected to the Peninsula by plane and vessels and also economically connected to Morocco: most of its fruits and vegetables are imported across the border. Also, Moroccans in the city's influence area are attracted to it: 36,000 Moroccans cross the border daily to work, shop, or trade goods .
History
Melilla was a Phoenician and later Punic establishment under the name of Rusadir. Later it became a part of the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana. As centuries passed, it went through Vandal, Byzantine and Hispano-Visigothic hands. Melilla was part of the Kingdom of Fez when Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, known as Guzmán el Bueno, the 3rd Duke of Medina Sidonia conquered it in 1497, a few years before (1492) Castile had taken control of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the last remnant of Al-Andalus.
The current limits of the Spanish territory around the fortress were fixed by treaties with Morocco in 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1894. In the late 19th century, as Spanish influence expanded, Melilla became the only authorized centre of trade on the Rif coast between Tetuan and the Algerian frontier. The value of trade increased, goat skins, eggs and beeswax being the principal exports, and cotton goods, tea, sugar and candles being the chief imports.
The Spaniards had had much trouble with the neighboring tribes—the turbulent Rif, independent Berbers (Amazighs) hardly subject to the sultan of Morocco.
In 1893 the Rif berbers besieged Melilla, and 25,000 men had to be dispatched against them. In 1908 two companies, under the protection of El Roghi, a chieftain then ruling the Rif region, started mining lead and iron some 20 kilometers from Melilla. A railway to the mines was begun. In October of that year the Roghi's vassals revolted against him and raided the mines, which remained closed until June 1909. By July the workmen were again attacked and several of them killed. Severe fighting between the Spaniards and the tribesmen followed. In 1910, the Rif having submitted, saw the Spaniards restarting the mines and undertaking harbour works at Mar Chica. But hostilities broke out again in 1911 and the Abd el Krim forces inflicted a grave defeat on the Spanish (see Battle of Annual), and were not pacified until 1927, when the Spanish Protectorate finally managed to control the area again.
General Francisco Franco used the city as one of his staging grounds for his rebellion in 1936, and a statue of him is still prominently featured.
On November 6, 2007, King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia visited the city, which caused a previously unknown jubilee in the city, expressed by a massive support demonstration while, on the other side, it also sparked protests from the Moroccan government[1]. It was the first time a Spanish monarch had visited Melilla in 80 years.
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City culture and society
Melilla's Capilla de Santiago or James's Chapel, by the city walls, is the only genuine Gothic architecture in Africa.
At the turn of the century, Melilla was a thriving part of Spanish Morocco. A new bourgeois class expressed its prestige in the architectural style of Modernisme, the Catalan version of Art Nouveau, which was then in vogue in Spain. The workshops inspired by the Catalan architect, Enrique Nieto, continued in the modernist style, even after it went out of fashion elsewhere. So Melilla has the second most important concentration of Modernist works in Spain, after Barcelona.
Melilla has been praised as an example of multiculturalism, being a small city in which one can find up to three major religions represented. However, the Christian majority of the past, being around 65% not so long time ago, has been shrinking while the number of Muslims has been steadily increasing to its present 45% of the population in either sides, and Jews have been leaving for years (from 20% of the population before World War II to less than 5% today). The culture in this little city is divided in two halves, one is European and the other Amazigh, while the first one is represented all over the rest of the country, the second one, being represented only in this little piece of Spain, is considered by some, especially in the mainland, as foreign.
Immigration
There is considerable pressure by African refugees to enter Melilla, a part of the European Union. The border is secured by the Melilla border fence, a six-meter-tall double fence with watch towers, yet refugees frequently manage to cross it illegally, avoiding the attempts by Spanish police to take them back to their home countries. Detection wires, tear gas dispensers, radar, and day/night vision cameras are planned to increase security and prevent illegal immigration. In October 2005, over 700 sub-Saharan migrants tried to enter Spanish territory from the Moroccan border.
Transportation
The most common means to reach Melilla is by air to Melilla Airport from Barcelona, Granada, Almeria, Valencia, Malaga or Madrid, by the land border with Morocco or by ferry from Almería or Málaga. The nearby Moroccan city of Nador is reached by a 10km. long semi-autoroute. From 2010 or 2011 it will be possible to catch a train from nearby Nador to the rest of Morocco
Sister cities
See also
- Melilla border fence
- Melilla (Spanish Congress Electoral District)
- Ceuta
- UD Melilla
- List of Spanish Colonial Wars in Morocco
- Spanish Morocco
References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
External links
- (Spanish) Official pages
- Official Tourism
- (Spanish) Melilla en Internet Journal
- (Spanish) Monuments of Melilla Official
- Spain's North African enclaves
- A Childhood Lost in the Cracks of Europe's Border
- Melilla in Google Maps
- Map of Melilla
- (Spanish) Easter of Melilla
- Pictures of Melilla
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