Cádiz

Spanish city and naval base, capital and seaport of the province of Cádiz, sited on a peninsula on the south side of Cádiz Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, 103 km/64 mi south of Seville; population (2001) 133,400. There are ferries to the Canary Islands and Casablanca, Morocco, and shipbuilding and repairs are important, as are fishing and tourism. After the discovery of the Americas in 1492, Cádiz became one of Europe's most vital trade ports. The English adventurer Francis Drake burned a Spanish fleet here in 1587 to prevent the sailing of the Armada. The city has an 18th-century cathedral.

Cádiz is one of Europe's oldest cities, probably founded by the Phoenicians in about 1100 BC; it had an early trade in tin with Cornwall, England. It was important to the Carthaginians, Romans, and Visigoths, and was under Moorish control from AD 711 until captured by Alfonso X of Castile in 1262. As the base for the Spanish fleet, Cádiz played a role in the various voyages of discovery to the New World and for a short while after 1492 enjoyed a monopoly of trade with South America, before Seville won this right. Drake's action of 1587 was repeated by the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard in 1596, but an attack by English forces in 1625 was repulsed with heavy losses. From 1810 to 1812 Cádiz was besieged by French troops whilst the Spanish parliament continued to function in the one part of Spain not under Napoleonic rule.

A bridge linking Cádiz to the opposite shore of the bay was completed in 1969, allowing the building of facilities for container handling and some small-scale industrial development.