Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on a small peninsula on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, bordering only Spain, a country that claims sovereignty. For the United Nations Organization, Gibraltar, as a colony, is one of the Non-Self-Governing Territories under the supervision of its Special Committee on Decolonization, as well as another sixteen more cases. In accordance with Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht,"the city and castles of Gibraltar, together with its port, defenses and fortresses" in 1713 would be a perpetual property of the British Crown in territory of Spanish jurisdiction, and must return to Spain if the United Kingdom renounces or alienates the property in any way.
The isthmus between the rock and the other Spanish fortifications is for Spain illegally occupied territory, according to its interpretation of the treaty. Gibraltar is located at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, east of the Bay of Algeciras, and extends over the geological formation of the Rock of Gibraltar, a peninsula that dominates the north shore of the strait of the same name, communicating the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 33 140 inhabitants in an area of less than 7 km², with an economy based on the service sector, mainly as a financial center, tourist center and free port. Taking advantage of its privileged strategic position, it has a naval base of the British Armed Forces.
Gibraltar was known in ancient times as the promontory or Mount Calpe, one of the two mythical columns of Hercules, and later renamed as a derivation of Arabic Ẏabal Tāriq, or "mountain of Tariq", in memory of General Táriq ibn Ziyad, who led the landing in this place of the forces of the Omeya Caliphate of al-Walid I in 711. It was scene of combats in the XIV and XV centuries, within the framework of the Reconquest, and finally integrated into the Crown of Castile in 1462. In 1704 It was taken by an Anglo-Dutch squadron in support of the Archduke Charles, pretender during the War of the Spanish Succession, at the end of which, the British and Spanish Crowns signed the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Since then, the political future of Gibraltar has been the object of of controversy in Spanish-British relations.