Gibraltar is a UK overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula - a narrow piece of land rising steeply from the low-lying coast of south-west Spain at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory shares a land border with Spain to the north and is an important strategic point of control for the western Mediterranean. It has historically been an important base for the British Armed Forces and is the site of a British naval base.

The territory was initially known as Mons Calpe, one of the Pillars of Hercules. The rock marked the limit to the known world and to pass beyond it was to sail to certain destruction over the bottomless waterfall at the edge of the world. Its current name is derived from the original Arabic name Gibr al-Tariq, meaning "rock of Tariq", referring to the Berber Umayyad general Tariq ibn-Ziyad, who led the initial incursion into Iberia in advance of the main Moorish force in 711.