60 Fun Facts About Strait of Gibraltar

The Strait of Gibraltar links the Mediterranean Sea to which other body of water?

The Atlantic is the only ocean the Mediterranean opens onto: its other natural outlet runs through the Bosporus to the Black Sea, which has no further way out to the open ocean.

How wide is the Strait of Gibraltar at its narrowest point?

About 14 km at the narrowest point, which leaves Africa far closer to Europe than England is to France: the Strait of Dover is more than twice as wide.

Which Spanish port city faces the Rock of Gibraltar from the opposite shore of its bay?

Algeciras sits across the water from the Rock, and Spaniards name the bay after their own port instead of after Gibraltar; ferries for Morocco sail from its harbour.

Which Moroccan port on the Strait of Gibraltar was run as an international zone by foreign powers until 1956?

Tangier was governed jointly by European powers from the 1920s, which made it a magnet for diplomats, spies and writers, and it rejoined Morocco only in 1956.

The name Gibraltar comes from an Arabic phrase meaning what?

Tariq's Mount, Jabal Tariq in Arabic, honours the Muslim commander who landed at the Rock early in the 8th century; over time the phrase was worn down to 'Gibraltar'.

Which Beatle married in Gibraltar in 1969 and then turned the trip into a hit single?

John Lennon. He married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969 and told the story in The Ballad of John and Yoko, which he and Paul McCartney recorded without the other two Beatles.

Which legendary island did Plato place just beyond the Pillars of Hercules?

Atlantis. In Plato's story its armies overran much of the Mediterranean until Athens defeated them, and then the island sank into the sea in a single day and night.

The Romans named the strait Fretum Gaditanum after Gades, which Spanish port today?

Cadiz. The Roman name Gades never quite died out: people from Cadiz are still called gaditanos.

Which 1805 naval battle was fought off a Spanish cape just outside the strait's western entrance?

Trafalgar. Nelson's flagship Victory was so badly damaged that she had to be towed into Gibraltar for repairs, then sailed for England with the dead admiral's body on board.

What did the Romans call the Rock of Gibraltar?

Mons Calpe. Its twin on the African shore was Abila, and Pliny recorded the local belief that Hercules had dug through between the two and let the ocean in.

Which ghost ship, found drifting without her crew in 1872, was sailed to Gibraltar for a salvage hearing?

Mary Celeste. Gibraltar's attorney general suspected a crime, and though the court found no evidence of one, the men who brought her in were paid only a fraction of what the ship and her cargo were worth.

Which of the labours of Hercules took him to the western limit of the world at the strait?

Fetching the cattle of Geryon. In Apollodorus's telling, Hercules aimed his bow at the scorching Sun on the way, and the god admired his nerve so much that he lent him a golden cup to sail in.

An ancient Greek historian wrote that Hercules narrowed the strait to keep what out of the Mediterranean?

Sea monsters. Diodorus Siculus added that other writers told the opposite story, in which the two continents were once joined and Hercules cut the channel between them.

What Latin warning was said to be inscribed on the pillars flanking the strait?

Ne plus ultra. It means 'nothing further beyond', and Spain later turned it on its head: Charles V took Plus ultra, 'further beyond', as his motto, and it is still on the Spanish coat of arms.

Which American insurance giant has long used the Rock of Gibraltar as its symbol?

Prudential. It adopted the Rock as a picture of strength in the 1890s, and for decades its adverts offered Americans 'a piece of the Rock'.

The Rock of Gibraltar is made mainly of what type of rock?

Limestone. Rainwater slowly dissolves it, which is why the Rock is riddled with caves, and the biggest chamber of St Michael's Cave is now used as a concert hall.

Which animals on the Rock of Gibraltar are Europe's only wild monkeys?

Barbary macaques. Their ancestors are thought to have been brought over from the mountains of Morocco and Algeria, and for decades the British Army was responsible for the Rock's troops.

During the Second World War, who ordered Gibraltar's dwindling monkeys restocked, heeding a legend that Britain would lose the Rock without them?

Winston Churchill. Told that only a handful of the Rock's monkeys were left, he had fresh animals brought over from North Africa to keep the colony going.

What do geologists call the time, about six million years ago, when the Mediterranean was cut off and largely dried up?

The Messinian salinity crisis. As the water level fell, rivers carved canyons down into the emptying basin, and the old gorge of the Nile still lies buried deep beneath Egypt.

The ocean refilled the Mediterranean through the strait about 5.33 million years ago in what event?

The Zanclean flood. It may have begun as a trickle lasting thousands of years, but about nine-tenths of the water is thought to have poured in within a few months to two years.

At its peak, the flood that refilled the Mediterranean through the strait carried hundreds of times the flow of which river?

The Amazon. One study put the peak flow at about 100 million cubic metres a second, enough to raise the level of the sea by more than ten metres a day.

If the strait closed today, how long would it take most of the Mediterranean to dry up?

About a thousand years. That is how quickly the basin is thought to have emptied when it was last cut off, and the lost water raised sea levels across the rest of the world.

Why does the strait's net flow run eastwards, into the Mediterranean?

Evaporation there exceeds river inflow plus rainfall. Without the top-up the sea would shrink, while saltier, heavier Mediterranean water slides out underneath in the opposite direction.

Which prized fish swims through the strait each year to spawn in the Mediterranean, where net traps have caught it since antiquity?

Bluefin tuna. Fishermen on the strait's Spanish shore still trap them in the almadraba, a maze of nets, and the nearby Roman town of Baelo Claudia grew rich salting the catch.

Which British aircraft carrier was sunk off Gibraltar in 1941 by a U-boat that had just slipped through the strait?

HMS Ark Royal. The carrier known as a 'lucky ship' was hit by a single torpedo from U-81 and sank the next day under tow, but all except one of her crew of nearly 1,500 were saved.

Which German admiral was reluctant to send U-boats through the strait, judging each one lost for good?

Karl Dönitz. The U-boat chief's fear proved right: about 60 boats got in from 1941 onwards, and not one of them ever made it back out through the strait.

Since 2020, which animals have been ramming sailboats and breaking their rudders around the strait?

Killer whales. A local population of only a few dozen has gone for hundreds of boats and sunk several, and the habit appears to spread as one animal copies another.

Migrating storks and eagles funnel across the strait because the open sea lacks what?

Rising air. Big soaring birds circle up on columns of warm air to gain height without flapping, and because these barely form over water they cross where the sea is narrowest.

The Rock of Gibraltar may have been one of the last refuges of which extinct humans?

Neanderthals. A Neanderthal skull was dug out of a Gibraltar quarry in 1848, eight years before the German find that gave the species its name, but nobody realised what it was.

Which American general ran Operation Torch, the 1942 invasion of North Africa, from a headquarters tunnelled inside the Rock of Gibraltar?

Dwight D. Eisenhower. He flew in three days before the landings and directed them from a small chamber in the Rock's wartime tunnels, a decade before he became US president.

The army that crossed the strait from Africa in 711 overthrew which Germanic people's kingdom in Spain?

The Visigoths. Their king Roderic was beaten within months and most of Spain gave way; legend blames a count named Julian, said to have shipped the invaders over to avenge his daughter.

Which Germanic people crossed the strait from Spain in the 5th century and went on to capture Carthage?

The Vandals. Their name gave English the word vandalism, though historians think they were probably no more destructive than other invaders of the time.

Which city, capital of the last Muslim state north of the strait, surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492?

Granada. Columbus was waiting in the royal camp when the city fell that January, and three months later Ferdinand and Isabella signed the deal that sent him west.

Under which treaty was Gibraltar ceded to Britain in perpetuity?

The Peace of Utrecht. Its tenth article also says that if Britain ever gives Gibraltar up, Spain must be offered it first, a clause still cited in the dispute today.

The fleet that captured Gibraltar in 1704 was English and what?

Dutch. The Anglo-Dutch fleet took the Rock in the name of an Austrian archduke who wanted Spain's crown, but when he failed to win it Britain kept Gibraltar for itself.

The Great Siege of Gibraltar took place during which conflict?

The American War of Independence. Spain joined the war against Britain chiefly to win Gibraltar back, but its grand assault with ten purpose-built floating batteries in 1782 ended in disaster.

Which composer began a song in 1782 hailing the Royal Navy's relief of besieged Gibraltar, then abandoned it?

Mozart. He set three stanzas of a poem about the siege and then gave up, telling his father the verse was sublime but too exaggerated and pompous for his ears.

Victorian Britain named four 'Imperial fortresses': Gibraltar, Bermuda, Halifax and which other colony?

Malta. Bombed and besieged in the Second World War, it held out, and the whole island was awarded the George Cross, which still appears on Malta's flag.

Until a tunnel opened in 2023, Gibraltar's main road to Spain ran straight across what, stopping traffic many times a day?

Airport runway. It was laid right across the main road to the border during the Second World War, so traffic had to stop for every take-off and landing until the tunnel opened in March 2023.

Gibraltarians slide between Andalusian Spanish and English, often mid-sentence, in a home-grown vernacular called what?

Llanito. English is the language of school and government, so everyday talk hops between the two, and Gibraltarians use the same word for themselves: they are Llanitos.

The Spanish autonomous city on the African shore of the strait is called what?

Ceuta. Morocco claims it, just as Spain claims British Gibraltar on the facing shore, so each side of the strait holds an enclave that its neighbour wants back.

Which kingdom's overseas empire began on the strait in 1415?

Portugal. King John I's sons are said to have wanted to win their knighthoods in a real battle, so he seized a Moroccan town across the strait, and one of them, Henry the Navigator, later sent ships down Africa's coast.

The prime minister-in-exile of which occupied country died when his plane crashed on take-off from Gibraltar in 1943?

Poland. General Sikorski's bomber came down in the sea seconds after it left the ground and only the pilot survived, a crash that has fed sabotage theories ever since.

Which Spanish town at the southernmost tip of Iberia is famous for wind sports thanks to the strait's funnel effect?

Tarifa. It takes its name from Tarif ibn Malik, a Berber commander who landed there in 710 on a scouting raid, a year before the invasion that conquered most of Spain.

What are the strait's two prevailing winds called?

Levante and Poniente. The names are Spanish for the rising and the setting of the sun: the Levante blows in from the east, the Poniente from the west.

The 1920s Atlantropa project proposed doing what to the strait?

Damming it. German architect Herman Sörgel wanted the dam's turbines to power Europe while the Mediterranean dropped by up to 200 metres, uncovering new land to settle.

Mercedes Gleitze, the first person known to swim the strait, had already worn which brand's new waterproof watch in the English Channel?

Rolex. Its Oyster was still ticking after more than ten hours in the sea in 1927, and the firm took the front page of the Daily Mail to boast about it, with her name attached.

Why did planners of a rail tunnel under the strait reject the shortest crossing?

Very deep water. The narrowest point is also one of the deepest, so the favoured route swings west along a far shallower ridge, even though that makes the tunnel much longer.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ships crossing the strait do so under what regime?

Transit passage. It can never be suspended, so neither Spain nor Morocco may close the strait to another country's ships, and unlike 'innocent passage' it covers aircraft overhead too.

Who brokered the deal ending Spain and Morocco's 2002 standoff over the islet of Perejil?

Colin Powell. Moroccan soldiers had pitched camp on the rock, which is used mainly by goatherds, Spanish commandos removed them within a week, and his deal left Parsley Island empty again.

Which general's Army of Africa was flown and shipped across the strait in 1936 to fight in the Spanish Civil War?

Francisco Franco. The Republic's navy was blockading the strait, so Hitler and Mussolini sent aircraft, and his soldiers were already being flown across when a convoy broke through.

Before Suez sent India-bound ships through the strait, they rounded which cape?

Cape of Good Hope. Until the Suez Canal opened in 1869, ships for India had to sail all the way round Africa; afterwards they cut through the Mediterranean, and Gibraltar grew busier as a supply port and naval base.

Which Berber dynasty founded Gibraltar as a permanent settlement with a castle in 1160?

Almohads. Their caliph Abd al-Mu'min ordered a 'City of Victory' on the Rock with a mosque and palaces for himself and his sons, but it seems to have fallen far short of his plans.

Which Phoenician-founded town at the head of the Bay of Gibraltar was the area's chief settlement in antiquity?

Carteia. In 171 BC the Roman Senate turned it into a colony for some 4,000 sons of Roman soldiers and Spanish women, men who had no citizenship of their own.

Settlers from which Italian port became a large part of British Gibraltar's people and left hundreds of words in its speech?

Genoa. Nearly all the Spanish townspeople left when the Rock was captured in 1704, most of the seventy or so who stayed were Genoese, and by 1813 Italians made up almost a third of the town.

What was the codename of the frustrated German plan to seize Gibraltar in World War II?

Operation Felix. German troops needed to cross Spain to reach the Rock, but Hitler's own military intelligence chief, sent to win Madrid over, quietly urged it to stay out of the war.

After French Morocco expelled them in 1940, most of Gibraltar's evacuees were shipped to which city?

London. Vichy France forced the evacuees out of Casablanca within weeks, so most were sent on to London for safety, where the air raids began soon after they arrived.

In a 2002 referendum, about 99% of Gibraltar's voters rejected which proposal?

Shared sovereignty with Spain. Britain had floated the idea in talks with Spain, so Gibraltar's own government called the vote, which the British foreign secretary dismissed as 'eccentric'.

Spain fully reopened Gibraltar's border in 1985, months before joining what?

The European Community. Spain had sealed the border in 1969, but it needed Britain's backing to be let in, and it opened the gates fully again the year before it joined.

Gibraltar's monkeys are often miscalled apes because, unlike most monkeys, they have no visible what?

Tails. True apes have none, and on the Rock's monkeys the tail has shrunk to a stub of barely two centimetres, so the wrong name stuck: a favourite place to watch them is still called Apes' Den.