Melilla () is an autonomous city of Spain and an exclave on the north coast of Morocco, with an area of.

Melilla, along with the Spanish exclave Ceuta, is one of the two Spanish territories located in mainland Africa.

The city layout is arranged in a wide semicircle around the beach and the Port of Melilla, on the eastern side of the peninsula of Cape Tres Forcas, at the foot of Mount Gurugú and the mouth of the Río de Oro, 1 metre above sea level.

The nearest Moroccan city is Nador and the port of Melilla and Nador are both within the Bou Areg Lagoon

The Spanish position is that both Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of the Spanish state, and have been since the 15th century, centuries before Morocco's independence from France in 1956.

In 2012 El Pais quoted unnamed Spanish military sources who said " The really expensive thing is maintaining Melilla, which also lacks any strategic interest, unlike Ceuta.

Melilla is subdivided into eight neighbourhoods ( barrios ):

There is a small, autonomous, and commercially important Hindu community present in Melilla, as well.

There is considerable pressure by African refugees to enter Melilla, a part of the European Union.

The border is secured by the Melilla border fence, a six-metre-tall double fence with watch towers, yet refugees frequently manage to cross it illegally, avoiding the attempts by Spanish police to take them back to their home countries.

Melilla is connected to the Spanish cities of Málaga, Madrid, Granada and Almería by air as well as to Málaga, Almería and Motril by ferry.

It is possible to travel from Melilla to Morocco on foot and then further using an ONCF train from nearby Beni Ansar (= Nador Port Railway station ) which is probably the most convenient method of travel to Taourirt, Fez and Casablanca or Tangier.

Melilla is twinned with:

is: Melilla

Spain is a country located in southwestern Europe, occupying most ( about 85 percent ) of the Iberian Peninsula and includes a small exclave inside France called Llívia as well as the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Western Atlantic Ocean off northwest Africa, and five places of sovereignty ( plazas de soberanía ) on and off the coast of north Africa: Ceuta, Melilla, Islas Chafarinas, Peñón de Alhucemas, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera.

The voting system used is that of proportional representation with closed party lists following D ' Hondt method in which the province forms a constituency or electoral circumscription and must be assigned a minimum of 2 deputies ; the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, are each assigned one deputy.

Spanish public opinion is not generally aware of the Portuguese claim on Olivenza / Olivença ( in contrast to the Spanish claim on Gibraltar or the Moroccan claims on Ceuta, Melilla and the Plazas de soberanía ).

* Most speakers in coastal dialects may debuccalize syllable-final to, or drop it entirely, so that está (" s / he is ") sounds like or, as in southern Spain ( Andalusia, Murcia, Castile – La Mancha ( except North-East ), Madrid, Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla ).

By air, Almería is served by Almería Airport which is the fourth largest in Andalusia and has domestic and international flights, mainly to Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Melilla, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Brussels, Dublin and Swiss, German and other EU cities.

Annual or Anoual ( Anwāl ) is a settlement in northeastern Morocco about 60 km west of Melilla.

Rifian is spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif on the Mediterranean coast and in the Rif mountains, with a large minority in the Spanish Autonomous cities Melilla.

* 1497-Gibraltar became the main base in the conquest of Melilla by the troops of the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

The crisis over Isla Perejil was seen by the Spanish government as a way for Morocco to test the waters in regard to Spain's will to defend Ceuta and Melilla.

On the morning of August 29, 2012 there was an incident in which seven Moroccan activists of the Committee for the Liberation of Ceuta and Melilla stormed the rock and placed flags of Morocco, resulting in the arrest of four of them by Spanish soldiers.

Only this archipelago and the possessions of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña ( 1476 – 1524 ), Melilla ( conquered by Pedro de Estopiñán in 1497 ), Villa Cisneros ( founded in 1502 in current Western Sahara ), Mazalquivir ( 1505 ), Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera ( 1508 ), Oran ( 1509 – 1790 ), Algiers ( 1510 – 1529 ), Bugia ( 1510 – 1554 ), Tripoli ( 1511 – 1551 ), Tunis ( 1535 – 1569 ) and Ceuta ( ceded by Portugal in 1668 ) remained as Spanish territory in Africa.

The Spanish city of Melilla in Northern Africa experienced an economic boom at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, and its new bourgeoisie showed its riches by massively ordering Modernista buildings.

The workshops established there by Catalan architect Enrique Nieto continued producing decorations in this style even when it was out of fashion in Barcelona, which results in Melilla having, oddly enough, the second largest concentration of Modernista works after Barcelona.

After his studies, in 1906, Abd el-Krim was sent to Melilla by his father.

On July 22, 1921, after five days of siege, Spanish forces garrisoning the encampment of Annual under the command of general Manuel Fernández Silvestre after the contiguous position of Igueriben had fallen, were attacked and destroyed by the Riffi irregular forces under the command of Muhammad Ibn ' Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi ( usually known as Abd el Krim ), a former functionary of the Spanish administration in the Office of Indigenous Affairs in Melilla and one of the leaders of the tribe of the Aith Ouriaghel ( known as ' Aith Urriaguel ' in Spanish ).

Transferred to Melilla by sea these reinforcements enabled the city to be held and Monte Arruit to be retaken by the end of November.

The Minister of War ordered the creation of an investigative commission, directed by the honored general Juan Picasso González, which developed the report known as the Expediente Picasso, which, despite calling out numerous military mistakes, owing to the obstructive action of various ministers and judges did not go so far as to lay political responsibility for the defeat, which popular opinion widely placed upon King Alfonso XIII, who according to several sources had encouraged Silvestre's irresponsible penetration of positions far from Melilla without having adequate defenses in his rear.

The two zones of the Spanish protectorate had few paved roads and were separated by the Bay of Al Hoceima, which the Spanish called Alhucemas ; the Treaty of Fez granted the concession for exploitation of the iron mines of Mount Uixan to the Spanish Rif Mines Company, which was also given permission to build a railroad to connect the mines with Melilla.

It is linked to the Spanish city of Melilla, to the north, by a semi-motorway.

Five cities are formally designated by their countries as autonomous: the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent ; the capital of Belgium, Brussels ; the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla ; and the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

They were taken by surprise and, due to the skill of the Moroccan chieftain, Abd-Al-Krim, virtually annihilated the Spanish army almost all the way to Melilla in the Battle of Annual.

The cities of Melilla and Ceuta and the lesser plazas de soberanía as well remained Spanish and are still garrisoned by Legion and Regulares units.

By sea, the port of Almería has connections to Melilla, Algeria and Morocco, and also tourist cruises in the Mediterranean.

The location of the city near the sea and close to the Spanish exclave Melilla are catalysts for international trade.

There are also two autonomous cities: those of Ceuta and Melilla.

They are also outside the customs union and VAT area, but no customs are levied on goods exported from the Union into either Ceuta and Melilla, and certain goods originating in Ceuta and Melilla are exempt from customs charges.

Indigenous members of the Tropas Nomadas or desert police serving in the Spanish Sahara were also designated as " askaris ", as were the other ranks of the Native Police ( Policia Indigena ) raised in Melilla in 1909.

: See also Río de Oro, Cesar and Río de Oro ( Melilla )

Despite successes in the late 19th century, the first Rif War ( 1893-4 ) around Melilla had also shown the potential weakness of the Spanish position along the coast.

GIL also established a strong presence in Estepona, Ceuta and Melilla.