| Disputed island Islas Chafarinas | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Chafarinas Islands viewed from Morocco | |
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| Geography | |
| Location | Mediterranean Sea |
| Total islands | 3 |
| Major islands | Isla del Congreso Isla Isabel II Isla del Rey |
| Area | 52.5 ha (130 acres) |
| Highest point | 137 m |
| Administration | |
| Claimed by | |
TheChafarinas Islands (Spanish:Islas ChafarinasIPA:[ˈislastʃafaˈɾinas],Berber languages:Igumamen Iceffaren orTakfarinas,Arabic:جزر الشفارين orالجزر الجعفرية), also spelledZafarin,Djaferin[1] orZafarani,[2] are a group of threeSpanish smallislets located in theAlboran Sea off the coast ofAfrica with an aggregate area of 0.525 square kilometres (0.203 sq mi), 45 km (28.0 mi) to the east ofNador and 3.3 km (2.1 mi) off the Moroccan town ofRas Kebdana. They are uninhabited except for a garrison of the Spanish Army,[3] though there was also a civil population roughly between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries.[3]
The Chafarinas Islands are one of theSpanish territories inNorth Africa off the Moroccan coast known asplazas de soberanía. The islands are administered by Spain but also claimed by Morocco as part of its territory alongside otherSpanish overseas territories in Northern Africa.[4]
These offshore islands were probably theTres Insulae of the Romans and theZafrān of the Arabs.[5]They were uninhabited and unclaimed in 1848, when the French government decided to occupy them, in order to monitor the tribes living in the border area between Morocco and French Algeria. A small expedition under the command of then ColonelMacMahon left Oran by sea and by land in January 1848 to take possession of the islands. Forewarned by its consul in Oran, Spain, which also coveted the Chafarinas, quickly dispatched a warship to the islands from Malaga. When the French arrived, the Spaniards had already taken possession of the islands in the name of Queen Isabel II.[6]
The Chafarinas Islands are made up of three islands (from west to east, with areas inhectares):
Under Spanish control since 1847, there is a 30-man[7] military garrison on Isla Isabel II, the only stable population on the small archipelago, down from 426 people in 1900 and 736 people in 1910. Small numbers of scientists, anti-trafficking police, and other authorized personnel sometimes increase the population to around 50.
The islands had relevance in Spanish environmentalist circles during the 1980s and 1990s, as the last individual ofMediterranean monk seal in Spanish territory lived there until it disappeared in the 1990s.[8] Nine out of eleven of itsmarine invertebrates are consideredendangered species and it is the home of the second largest colony of endangeredAudouin's gull in the world.[9] The islands have been recognised as anImportant Bird Area (IBA) byBirdLife International because they support, as well as the Audouin's gull colony, a breeding colony ofScopoli's shearwaters, with some 800–1,000 breeding pairs estimated in 2001–2004.[10]
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chaffarinas".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 800.Countries and territories ofNorth Africa | |||||||||||||||||
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1Entirely claimed by both Morocco and theSADR.2Spanish exclaves claimed by Morocco.3Portuguese archipelago claimed by Spain.4Disputed between Egypt and the Sudan.5Unclaimed territory located between Egypt and the Sudan.6Disputed between South Sudan and the Sudan.7Part of Chad, formerly claimed by Libya.8Disputed between Morocco and Spain | |||||||||||||||||
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