Regions of Spain
Ceuta: the Autonomous City
By m.p. - Nov 5, 2007 - 8:54 PM
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The autonomous city of Ceuta, in the far northwest of the African continent, faces northwards onto the coast of Cádiz province, in Andalucía, with just 21 kilometres separating the two points across the Strait of Gibraltar.
This tiny peninsula is almost totally surrounded by sea, lying at the meeting point of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Its maritime border makes up twenty kilometres of its total border of twenty eight. The land border is shared with Morocco.
A population of 75,861 (January 2006 census) inhabits a total area of 19 square kilometres.
Conquered by Portugal in the early fifteenth century, the city came under Spanish control in 1580 after Sebastián I of Portugal died without leaving any heirs two years previously: Felipe II of Castilla became Felipe I of Portugal, uniting the two kingdoms under one crown.
Sixty years later, the people of Ceuta remained faithful to Spain when war broke out between the two countries and Portugal regained its independence. Portugal recognised Spanish sovereignty over the city in 1668.
Spain retained control of Ceuta when the independence of Morocco was recognised in 1956, and Spain surrendered most of its occupied territories there, discontinuing the Protectorate which had been in place in Spanish-occupied Morocco since 1912. Ceuta was then, until autonomy in the mid 1990s, administered as part of Cádiz province, in Andalucía.
Ceuta became the Autonomous City of Ceuta under its 1995 Statute of Autonomy.
Juan Vivas, who had been Mayor-President of the city following a motion of censure against the previous GIL party government in 2001, was returned for another term in the 2007 election, when he led the Partido Popular to a victory of 19 seats in the Ceuta Assembly, the Asamblea de Ceuta.
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