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75-592: Maximum altitudes of the region are reached at the 3,482 m (11,424 ft) Mulhacén peak at the Cordillera Betica. Precipitation is collected mainly by the Guadalquivir (Betics) and Sebou (Rif) rivers, which have delivered most sedimentary infill of the homonym sedimentary foreland basins .. North–south convergence of the Eurasian and African plates occurred during the middle Oligocene to

150-576: A brief period in the 1330s and 1340s, Castile tended to be nonetheless "essentially unstable" from a political standpoint until the late 15th century. Merchants from Genoa and Pisa were conducting an intense trading activity in Catalonia already by the 12th century, and later in Portugal. Since the 13th century, the Crown of Aragon expanded overseas; led by Catalans , it attained an overseas empire in

225-599: A permanent trading port in the Gadir colony c.  800 BCE in response to the increasing demand of silver from the Assyrian Empire . The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over several centuries. In the 8th century BCE, the first Greek colonies , such as Emporion (modern Empúries ), were founded along

300-568: A population of 100,000 by the 10th century, Toledo 30,000 by the 11th century and Seville 80,000 by the 12th century. During the Middle Ages, the North of the peninsula housed many small Christian polities including the Kingdom of Castile , the Kingdom of Aragon , the Kingdom of Navarre , the Kingdom of León or the Kingdom of Portugal , as well as a number of counties that spawned from

375-725: A population of roughly 53 million, it is the second-largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula . The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the River Ebro (Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin ). The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that

450-637: A role in the conflict by providing key naval support to France that helped lead to that nation's eventual victory. After the accession of Henry III to the throne of Castile, the populace, exasperated by the preponderance of Jewish influence, perpetrated a massacre of Jews at Toledo. In 1391, mobs went from town to town throughout Castile and Aragon, killing an estimated 50,000 Jews, or even as many as 100,000, according to Jane Gerber . Women and children were sold as slaves to Muslims, and many synagogues were converted into churches. According to Hasdai Crescas , about 70 Jewish communities were destroyed. During

525-573: A sudden economic cessation. Many settlements in northern Castile and Catalonia were left forsaken. The plague marked the start of the hostility and downright violence towards religious minorities (particularly the Jews) as an additional consequence in the Iberian realms. The 14th century was a period of great upheaval in the Iberian realms. After the death of Peter the Cruel of Castile (reigned 1350–69),

600-668: Is a peninsula in south-western Europe . Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees , it includes the territories of Peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal , comprising most of the region, as well as the tiny adjuncts of Andorra , Gibraltar , and, pursuant to the traditional definition of the Pyrenees as the peninsula's northeastern boundary, a small part of France . With an area of approximately 583,254 square kilometres (225,196 sq mi), and

675-474: Is located on the inner side of the arc, adjacent to the Alboran Sea, mostly consists of high-pressure, low-temperature metamorphic rocks . The External Zone, located on the outer side of the arc, is mostly made of sediments deposited on the passive margins of Africa and Iberia. These rocks became highly deformed during the westward emplacement of the hinterland of the subduction system, with some units in

750-415: Is not exceptionally dramatic in terms of steepness or local relief. The south flank of the mountain is gentle and presents no technical challenge, as is the case for the long west ridge. The shorter, somewhat steeper northeast ridge is slightly more technical. The north face of the mountain is much steeper and offers several routes involving moderately steep climbing on snow and ice (up to French grade AD ) in

825-621: Is testimony to a considerable input from various waves of (predominantly male) Western Steppe Herders from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the Bronze Age. Iberia experienced a significant genetic turnover, with 100% of the paternal ancestry and 40% of the overall ancestry being replaced by peoples with steppe-related ancestry. In the Chalcolithic ( c.  3000 BCE), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to

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900-677: The Ṣaqāliba (literally meaning "slavs", although they were slaves of generic European origin) as well as Sudanese slaves. The Umayyad rulers faced a major Berber Revolt in the early 740s; the uprising originally broke out in North Africa (Tangier) and later spread across the peninsula. Following the Abbasid takeover from the Umayyads and the shift of the economic centre of the Islamic Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad,

975-711: The Aurignacian , Gravettian , Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of them characterized by the complex forms of the art of the Upper Paleolithic . During the Neolithic expansion , various megalithic cultures developed in the Iberian Peninsula. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture , also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of

1050-665: The Ebro ) as far north as the Rhône , but in his day they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar , with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia." According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia (Greek: Iberia ) as synonyms. The confusion of

1125-614: The House of Trastámara succeeded to the throne in the person of Peter's half brother, Henry II (reigned 1369–79). In the kingdom of Aragón, following the death without heirs of John I (reigned 1387–96) and Martin I (reigned 1396–1410), a prince of the House of Trastámara, Ferdinand I (reigned 1412–16), succeeded to the Aragonese throne. The Hundred Years' War also spilled over into the Iberian peninsula, with Castile particularly taking

1200-798: The Phoenician alphabet and originated in Southwestern Iberia by the 7th century BCE has been tentatively proposed. In the sixth century BCE, the Carthaginians arrived in the peninsula while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (modern-day Cartagena, Spain ). In 218 BCE, during the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians,

1275-602: The Phoenicians , by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean . Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia , which he wrote about c.  500 BCE . Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with [...] Iberia." According to Strabo , prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος ( Ibēros ,

1350-803: The Strait of Gibraltar and founded upon a vassalage relationship with the Crown of Castile, also insinuated itself into the European mercantile network, with its ports fostering intense trading relations with the Genoese as well, but also with the Catalans, and to a lesser extent, with the Venetians, the Florentines, and the Portuguese. Between 1275 and 1340, Granada became involved in the "crisis of

1425-592: The 15th century who, according to legend, was buried on the summit of the mountain. It is still known in present-day Arabic as Jabal Mawla el-Hassan (Mountain of Mawla el-Hassan). Mulhacén is the highest peak in Southern Europe outside of the Alps . It is also the third-most prominent peak in Western Europe, after Mont Blanc and Mount Etna , and is ranked 64th in the world by prominence. The peak

1500-610: The 15th century, Portugal, which had ended its southwards territorial expansion across the Iberian Peninsula in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve, initiated an overseas expansion in parallel to the rise of the House of Aviz , conquering Ceuta (1415) arriving at Porto Santo (1418), Madeira and the Azores , as well as establishing additional outposts along the North-African Atlantic coast. In addition, already in

1575-466: The Alboran Sea. The crustal structure of the Gibraltar Arc is characterized by an arcuate bulge parallel to the arc, with crustal thinning occurring uniformly from the margins of the mountain ranges towards the Alboran Sea. The lithospheric mantle also has an arcuate bulge below the arc with extreme mantle thinning in the Alboran Sea, which is the typical structure of a back-arc basin located on

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1650-688: The Carolingian Marca Hispanica . Christian and Muslim polities fought and allied among themselves in variable alliances. The Christian kingdoms progressively expanded south taking over Muslim territory in what is historiographically known as the " Reconquista " (the latter concept has been however noted as product of the claim to a pre-existing Spanish Catholic nation and it would not necessarily convey adequately "the complexity of centuries of warring and other more peaceable interactions between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in medieval Iberia between 711 and 1492"). The Caliphate of Córdoba

1725-560: The Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares, the Argaric culture flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC, when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy. The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion, with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by

1800-665: The Christian Iberian kingdoms by the beginning of the 13th century, in relation to the more or less conflictual border with Muslim lands. By the beginning of the 13th century, a power reorientation took place in the Iberian Peninsula (parallel to the Christian expansion in Southern Iberia and the increasing commercial impetus of Christian powers across the Mediterranean) and to a large extent, trade-wise,

1875-835: The Early Modern Period, between the completion of the Granada War in 1492 and the death of Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Hispanic Monarchy would make strides in the imperial expansion along the Mediterranean coast of the Maghreb. During the Late Middle Ages, the Jews acquired considerable power and influence in Castile and Aragon. Throughout the late Middle Ages, the Crown of Aragon took part in

1950-695: The External Rif having undergone medium-pressure, low-temperature metamorphism during the Oligocene. Flysch units from the Cretaceous to Early Miocene are located between the External and Internal Zones. These were folded and thrust during the westward migration of the Internal Zones and can be interpreted as the palaeo- accretionary wedge of the subduction system that was active during

2025-773: The Greeks had called "the whole of the peninsula" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River. The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BCE between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian , uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr , apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination. The early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from

2100-522: The Hispano-Roman population took place, ( muwalladum or Muladí ). After a long process, spurred on in the 9th and 10th centuries, the majority of the population in Al-Andalus eventually converted to Islam. The Muslims were referred to by the generic name Moors . The Muslim population was divided per ethnicity (Arabs, Berbers, Muladí), and the supremacy of Arabs over the rest of group

2175-535: The Iberian Peninsula reorientated towards the North away from the Muslim World. During the Middle Ages, the monarchs of Castile and León, from Alfonso V and Alfonso VI (crowned Hispaniae Imperator ) to Alfonso X and Alfonso XI tended to embrace an imperial ideal based on a dual Christian and Jewish ideology. Despite the hegemonic ambitions of its rulers and the consolidation of the union of Castile and León after 1230, it should be pointed that, except for

2250-627: The Islamic army landed at Gibraltar and, in an eight-year campaign, occupied all except the northern kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania . Al-Andalus ( Arabic : الإندلس , tr. al-ʾAndalūs , possibly "Land of the Vandals"), is the Arabic name given to Muslim Iberia. The Muslim conquerors were Arabs and Berbers ; following the conquest, conversion and arabization of

2325-724: The Lower and Middle Miocene. Mulhac%C3%A9n Mulhacén ( [mulaˈθen] ), with an elevation of 3,482 metres (11,424 ft), is the highest mountain in peninsular Spain and in all of the Iberian Peninsula . It is part of the Sierra Nevada range in the Penibaetic System . It is named after Abu'l-Hasan Ali , known as Muley Hacén in Spanish, the penultimate Muslim ruler of Granada in

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2400-454: The Maro-Nerja and Yusuf systems. These trend NW and have transtensional deformation. The present-day stress pattern is probably the consequence of the interference between two stress sources: ongoing continent convergence and secondary stress sources from variations in crustal thickness, sedimentary accumulations causing loading, and the active strike-slip fault. The Arc has two sections: the Internal and External Zones. The Internal Zone, which

2475-416: The Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. Together with the presence of Phoenician and Greek epigraphy, several paleohispanic scripts developed in the Iberian Peninsula along the 1st millennium BCE. The development of a primordial paleohispanic script antecessor to the rest of paleohispanic scripts (originally supposed to be a non-redundant semi-syllabary ) derived from

2550-557: The Mediterranean during Classical Antiquity having no match until the Industrial Revolution . In addition to mineral extraction (of which the region was the leading supplier in the early Roman world, with production of the likes of gold, silver, copper, lead, and cinnabar ), Hispania also produced manufactured goods ( sigillata pottery, colourless glass , linen garments) fish and fish sauce ( garum ), dry crops (such as wheat and, more importantly, esparto ), olive oil , and wine . The process of Romanization spurred on throughout

2625-431: The Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France , this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 30,000 BP, when Neanderthal man faced extinction. About 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula from across the Pyrenees. On the Iberian Peninsula, modern humans developed a series of different cultures, such as

2700-437: The Strait", and was caught in a complex geopolitical struggle ("a kaleidoscope of alliances") with multiple powers vying for dominance of the Western Mediterranean, complicated by the unstable relations of Muslim Granada with the Marinid Sultanate . The conflict reached a climax in the 1340 Battle of Río Salado , when, this time in alliance with Granada, the Marinid Sultan (and Caliph pretender) Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman made

2775-431: The Suebi kingdom and its capital city, Bracara (modern day Braga ), in 584–585. They would also occupy the province of the Byzantine Empire (552–624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula . However, Balearic Islands remained in Byzantine hands until Umayyad conquest, which began in 703 CE and was completed in 902 CE. In 711, a Muslim army conquered the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania . Under Tariq ibn Ziyad ,

2850-491: The Western Mediterranean, with a presence in Mediterranean islands such as the Balearics , Sicily and Sardinia , and even conquering Naples in the mid-15th century. Genoese merchants invested heavily in the Iberian commercial enterprise with Lisbon becoming, according to Virgínia Rau , the "great centre of Genoese trade" in the early 14th century. The Portuguese would later detach their trade to some extent from Genoese influence. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada , neighbouring

2925-420: The aftermath of the conquest increased mining extractive processes in the southwest of the peninsula (which required a massive number of forced laborers, initially from Hispania and latter also from the Gallic borderlands and other locations of the Mediterranean), bringing in a far-reaching environmental outcome vis-à-vis long-term global pollution records, with levels of atmospheric pollution from mining across

3000-545: The concave side of an arcuate mountain belt. A major left-lateral strike-slip fault zone, the Trans-Alboran Shear Zone , crosscuts the Gibraltar Arc with a NE trend from the eastern Betics to the western Rif. It was active during the Neogene, contributing to the westward advance of the Gibraltar Arc. Some of the previous fault segments are active, with left-lateral transpressional faulting and moderate to significant clockwise stress rotations. Oblique to this shear zone, there are two major right-lateral strike-slip fault systems,

3075-469: The culture of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar . During the Early Bronze Age, southeastern Iberia saw the emergence of important settlements, a development that has compelled some archeologists to propose that these settlements indicate the advent of state-level social structures. From this centre, bronze metalworking technology spread to other cultures like the Bronze of Levante , South-Western Iberian Bronze and Las Cogotas . Preceded by

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3150-407: The delineation of Iberia from Gaul ( Keltikē ) by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") from there. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the consolidation of Romance languages , the word "Iberia" continued the Roman word Hiberia and the Greek word Ἰβηρία . The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from

3225-442: The early fifth century, Germanic peoples occupied the peninsula, namely the Suebi , the Vandals ( Silingi and Hasdingi ) and their allies, the Alans . Only the kingdom of the Suebi ( Quadi and Marcomanni ) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths , who occupied all of the Iberian Peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually occupied

3300-553: The feebleness of the taifa principalities, Ferdinand I of León seized Lamego and Viseu (1057–1058) and Coimbra (1064) away from the Taifa of Badajoz (at times at war with the Taifa of Seville ); Meanwhile, in the same year Coimbra was conquered, in the Northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, the Kingdom of Aragon took Barbastro from the Hudid Taifa of Lérida as part of an international expedition sanctioned by Pope Alexander II. Most critically, Alfonso VI of León-Castile conquered Toledo and its wider taifa in 1085, in what it

3375-440: The first Roman troops occupied the Iberian Peninsula, known to them as Hispania . After 197, the territories of the peninsula most accustomed to external contact and with the most urban tradition (the Mediterranean Coast and the Guadalquivir Valley) were divided by Romans into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior . Local rebellions were quelled, with a 195 Roman campaign under Cato the Elder ravaging hotspots of resistance in

3450-399: The first century BC. The peninsula was also the battleground of civil wars between rulers of the Roman republic; such as the Sertorian War , and the conflict between Caesar and Pompey later in the century. During their 600-year occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the Romans introduced the Latin language that influenced many of the languages that exist today in the Iberian peninsula. In

3525-444: The former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for 'near' and 'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces : Hispania Baetica , Hispania Tarraconensis , and Hispania Lusitania . Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. (The name Iberia

3600-411: The inhabitants of the territory with the environment. By the Iron Age , starting in the 8th century BCE, the Iberian Peninsula consisted of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Celtiberians , Gallaeci , Astures , Celtici , Lusitanians and others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones and the cultures of the Aquitanian in

3675-427: The larger hilltop settlements, and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population. Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse. The culture of the motillas developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called motillas ) in the upper Guadiana basin (in

3750-429: The last Marinid attempt to set up a power base in the Iberian Peninsula. The lasting consequences of the resounding Muslim defeat to an alliance of Castile and Portugal with naval support from Aragon and Genoa ensured Christian supremacy over the Iberian Peninsula and the preeminence of Christian fleets in the Western Mediterranean. The 1348–1350 bubonic plague devastated large parts of the Iberian Peninsula, leading to

3825-439: The late Miocene , followed by northwest–southeast convergence from the late Tortonian to present. The Gibraltar Arc was formed during the Neogene due to a combination of western migration of the orogenic mountain front and late orogenic extension. The present convergence rate of the plates is estimated to be approximately 4.5 to 5.0 mm/year with an azimuth of 135–120°. The eastward Gibraltar Arc oceanic subduction system

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3900-401: The meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. In modern Basque , the word ibar means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai means "river", but there is no proof connecting the names with Ebro or Iberia . The word Iberia comes from the Latin word Hiberia originating from the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία ( Ibēríā ), used by Greek geographers under

3975-453: The mediterranean slave trade, with Barcelona (already in the 14th century), Valencia (particularly in the 15th century) and, to a lesser extent, Palma de Mallorca (since the 13th century), becoming dynamic centres in this regard, involving chiefly eastern and Muslim peoples. Castile engaged later in this economic activity, rather by adhering to the incipient atlantic slave trade involving sub-saharan people thrusted by Portugal (Lisbon being

4050-473: The mountain from suspected hypothermia . Initial reports quoting the Spanish Civil Guard stated that the three were ill-equipped for the extreme conditions. This claim was subsequently disputed both by the family and a colleague of one of the climbers, and by one of the rescuers. A plaque dedicated to them has been placed at the summit. Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( IPA : / aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə n / ), also known as Iberia ,

4125-432: The northeastern Ebro Valley and beyond. The threat to Roman interests posed by Celtiberians and Lusitanians in uncontrolled territories lingered in. Further wars of indigenous resistance, such as the Celtiberian Wars and the Lusitanian War , were fought in the 2nd century. Urban growth took place, and population progressively moved from hillforts to the plains. An example of the interaction of slaving and ecocide ,

4200-401: The peninsula in 1146. Somewhat straying from the trend taking place in other locations of the Latin West since the 10th century, the period comprising the 11th and 13th centuries was not one of weakening monarchical power in the Christian kingdoms. The relatively novel concept of "frontier" (Sp: frontera ), already reported in Aragon by the second half of the 11th century become widespread in

4275-551: The peninsula's first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic , Middle East and North Africa . Around 2800 – 2700 BCE, the Beaker culture , which produced the Maritime Bell Beaker , probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus estuary and spread from there to many parts of western Europe. The Bronze Age began on the Iberian Peninsula in 2100 cal. BC according to radiocarbon datings of several key sites. Bronze Age cultures developed beginning c.  1800 BCE, when

4350-422: The peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BCE. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization . As is the case for most of the rest of Southern Europe, the principal ancestral origin of modern Iberians are Early European Farmers who arrived during the Neolithic. The large predominance of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b, common throughout Western Europe ,

4425-406: The present southern Spain to the present southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed " Iberian ". Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence near the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown,

4500-408: The remaining taifas. The Almoravids in the Iberian peninsula progressively relaxed strict observance of their faith, and treated both Jews and Mozarabs harshly, facing uprisings across the peninsula, initially in the Western part. The Almohads , another North-African Muslim sect of Masmuda Berber origin who had previously undermined the Almoravid rule south of the Strait of Gibraltar, first entered

4575-401: The rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single geographical entity or a distinct population; the same name was used for the Kingdom of Iberia , natively known as Kartli in the Caucasus , the core region of what would later become the Kingdom of Georgia . It was Strabo who first reported

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4650-404: The southern meseta ) in a context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the 4.2-kiloyear climatic event , which roughly coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the motillas (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of

4725-407: The species Homo erectus , Homo heidelbergensis , or a new species called Homo antecessor . Around 200,000 BP , during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic ,

4800-443: The terms 'Spanish Peninsula' or 'Pyrenaean Peninsula'. The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited by members of the Homo genus for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites in the Atapuerca Mountains demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina , where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to

4875-457: The time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania . In Greek and Roman antiquity, the name Hesperia was used for both the Italian and Iberian Peninsula; in the latter case Hesperia Ultima (referring to its position in the far west) appears as form of disambiguation from the former among Roman writers. Also since Roman antiquity, Jews gave the name Sepharad to the peninsula. As they became politically interested in

4950-438: The view of Jaime Vicens Vives , "the most powerful state in Europe". Abd-ar-Rahman III also managed to expand the clout of Al-Andalus across the Strait of Gibraltar, waging war, as well as his successor, against the Fatimid Empire . Between the 8th and 12th centuries, Al-Andalus enjoyed a notable urban vitality, both in terms of the growth of the preexisting cities as well as in terms of founding of new ones: Córdoba reached

5025-480: The western portion of the Pyrenees. As early as the 12th century BCE, the Phoenicians , a thalassocratic civilization originally from the Eastern Mediterranean, began to explore the coastline of the peninsula, interacting with the metal-rich communities in the southwest of the peninsula (contemporarily known as the semi-mythical Tartessos ). Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz ). Phoenicians established

5100-433: The western province of al-Andalus was marginalised and ultimately became politically autonomous as independent emirate in 756, ruled by one of the last surviving Umayyad royals, Abd al-Rahman I . Al-Andalus became a center of culture and learning, especially during the Caliphate of Córdoba . The Caliphate reached the height of its power under the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his successor al-Hakam II , becoming then, in

5175-399: The winter. Mulhacén can be climbed in a single day from the villages of either Capileira or Trevélez , but it is more common to spend a night at the mountain refuge at Poqueira, or in the bare shelter at Caldera to the west. Those making the ascent from Trevélez can also bivouac at the tarns to the northeast of the peak. On 5 March 2006, three British climbers from Teesside died on

5250-560: The words was because of an overlapping in political and geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia , similar to the Greek Iberia , literally translates to "land of the Hiberians". This word was derived from the river Hiberus (now called Ebro or Ebre). Hiber (Iberian) was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BCE. Virgil wrote impacatos (H)iberos ("restless Iberi") in his Georgics . Roman geographers and other prose writers from

5325-554: Was a recurrent causal for strife, rivalry and hatred, particularly between Arabs and Berbers. Arab elites could be further divided in the Yemenites (first wave) and the Syrians (second wave). Christians and Jews were allowed to live as part of a stratified society under the dhimmah system , although Jews became very important in certain fields. Some Christians migrated to the Northern Christian kingdoms, while those who stayed in Al-Andalus progressively arabised and became known as musta'arab ( mozarabs ). The slave population comprised

5400-569: Was active during the Early and Middle Miocene and has likely been inactive since. At this time, the Alboran Sea acted as a back-arc basin during the deposition of accretionary units. Since the Late Miocene, north–south to northwest–southeast continental convergence forced the subduction system along the arc that is oriented N20°E to N100°E. There is a lithospheric slab dipping east from the Strait of Gibraltar down to 600 km depth beneath

5475-653: Was ambiguous, being also the name of the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus.) Whatever languages may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones , which was preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees. The modern phrase "Iberian Peninsula" was coined by the French geographer Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent on his 1823 work "Guide du Voyageur en Espagne" . Prior to that date, geographers had used

5550-553: Was seen as a critical event at the time, entailing also a huge territorial expansion, advancing from the Sistema Central to La Mancha . In 1086, following the siege of Zaragoza by Alfonso VI of León-Castile, the Almoravids , religious zealots originally from the deserts of the Maghreb, landed in the Iberian Peninsula, and, having inflicted a serious defeat to Alfonso VI at the battle of Zalaca , began to seize control of

5625-512: Was subsumed in a period of upheaval and civil war (the Fitna of al-Andalus ) and collapsed in the early 11th century, spawning a series of ephemeral statelets, the taifas . Until the mid 11th century, most of the territorial expansion southwards of the Kingdom of Asturias/León was carried out through a policy of agricultural colonization rather than through military operations; then, profiting from

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