evidence: Today, Ceuta is a Spanish exclave, a piece of a country entirely surrounded by another, in this case Morocco. And while it may only be 18 miles from the Spanish mainland, this tiny pocket of Europe in Africa is one of the most unusual places on either continent. [...] Fought over for millennia, Ceuta is officially classed as an autonomous Spanish city. It’s also part of the European Union and is one of two Spanish exclaves on North Africa’s Mediterranean coastline. The other is Melilla, a city also of some 85,000 people, around 250 miles east of Ceuta, that also borders Morocco. [...] It’s a dispute that still runs deep, and in 2023, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez complained to Moroccan authorities when Moroccan maps included both Ceuta and Melilla within the country’s borders. The year before, Spanish media reported Sanchez as stating that "Ceuta and Melilla are Spain, full stop" after Morocco had complained to the United Nations that "Melilla is a prison occupied by Spain."