Arabic Sebta
Spanish enclave (pop., 2001: 137,916), North Africa.
A military station and seaport, it constitutes with Melilla an autonomous community of Spain with an area of 8 sq mi (20 sq km). The city is on a narrow isthmus that connects Jebel Musa (one of the Pillars of Hercules ) to the mainland. Located in northern Morocco at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar , it was successively colonized by Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans. Long a flourishing trading town, it was taken by the Portuguese in 1415, and it passed to Spain in 1580. In 1995 the Spanish government approved statutes of autonomy for Ceuta.