Ceuta's strategic location has made it the crucial waypoint of many cultures' trade and military ventures — beginning with the Carthaginians in the 5th century BC (They called the city Abyla). It wasn't until the Romans took control in about AD 42, however, that the port city (named Septem at the time) assumed an almost exclusive military purpose. Approximately 400 years later, the Vandals ousted the Romans for control, and later it fell to the Visigoths of Spain or to the Byzantines.

In 710, as Muslim armies approached the city, its Visigothic governor Julian (also described as "king of the Ghomara") changed sides and urged them to invade Spain (for personal reasons, according to the Arab chroniclers; the Visigothic King Roderick is said to have mistreated his daughter). Under the leadership of Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad, Ceuta was used as a prime staging ground for an assault on Visigoth-ruled Iberia soon after.


After Julian's death the Arabs took direct control of the city; this was resented by the surrounding indigenous Berber tribes, who destroyed it in a Kharijite rebellion led by Maysara al-Haqir in 740. It lay waste until refounded in the 9th century by Majakas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, who started the short-lived dynasty of the Banu Isam. Under his great-grandson they paid allegiance to the Idrisids (briefly); the dynasty finally ended when he abdicated in favour of the Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba Abd ar-Rahman III an-Nasir in 931. Chaos ensued with the fall of the Umayyad caliphate in 1031, but eventually it was taken over by the Almoravids in 1084, and again used as a base from which to invade Spain. They were succeeded by the Almohads in 1147, who ruled it, apart from Ibn Hud's rebellion of 1232, until the Hafsids took it in 1242. The Hafsids' influence in the west rapidly waned, and the city expelled them in 1249; after this, it went through a period of political instability.


In 1309, Ceuta was conquered with Aragonese help and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Fez.

In 1415, Ceuta was taken by the Portuguese during the reign of John I of Portugal. The primary aim of the conquest was to expel Muslim influence from the area and further promote Christianity.

After Portugal lost its independence to Spain in 1580, the majority of the population of Ceuta became of Spanish origin, so much so that, when Portugal regained its independence in 1640 and war broke between the two countries, Ceuta was the only colony of the Portuguese Empire that sided with Spain.

The allegiance of Ceuta to Spain was recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon by which, on January 1 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal formally ceded Ceuta to Carlos II of Spain. However, the flag and coat of arms of Ceuta remained unchanged and to this day still feature the colonial configuration of the Portuguese shield.

Culturally, modern Ceuta can be considered part of the Spanish region of Andalusia. Indeed, it was until recently attached to the province of Cádiz -the coasts of Cádiz being only 12 miles away. It is a very cosmopolitan city, with a large ethnic Berber Muslim minority as well as Jewish minorities.