Melilla is an autonomous Spanish city located in the north of Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, at the Cape of Tres Forcas. Located in the heart of the Rif region, it limits by sea with the Alboran Sea and with Morocco by land, specifically with the communes of Mariguari and Farhana and the city of Beni-Enzar, belonging to the province of Nador. It is also included in the natural geographical area of Guelaya. The city and its territories extend over 12 338 km² of surface area in the eastern part of Cape Tres Forcas.
It has a population of 86,120 inhabitants and has various characteristics due to its geographical position and its history, both in the composition of its population, its economic activity and its culture. It has a fortress, Melilla La Vieja, built between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, equipped with warehouses, cisterns, bastions, moats, forts, caves, mines, chapels and hospitals, which make it the most complete of this Mediterranean shore, apart from the strong neo-medieval exteriors, built during the 19th century. The architectural heritage of Melilla, located in the Ensanche de Melilla, is considered, among other foreign experts Salvador Tarragó, Francisco Miralles, Juan Bassegoda, Fernando Chueca. Together with Barcelona and above that of Madrid or Valencia, as one of the best exponents of the Spanish modernist style of the early twentieth century. Currently, it receives a floating population every day, mainly from the Moroccan province of Nador, which causes its population to almost double on some occasions.