Iberian Peninsula

(noun)

The Iberian Peninsula, commonly called Iberia, is a peninsula located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas. It is bordered on the southeast and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the north, west and southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. The Pyrenees form the northeast edge of the peninsula, separating it from the rest of Europe. In the south, it approaches the northern coast of Africa.

Related Terms

Examples of Iberian Peninsula in the following topics:

  • Commerce in the New England Colonies

    • By the end of the 17th century, New England colonists had tapped into a sprawling Atlantic trade network that connected them to the English homeland as well as the West African slave coast, the Caribbean's plantation islands, and the Iberian Peninsula.

  • Enforcing the Navigation Acts

    • Within a few years, Dutch and Spanish merchants overwhelmed English merchants in commerce on the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Levant.

  • Early New England Society

    • By the end of the 17th century, New England colonists had tapped into a sprawling Atlantic trade network that connected them to the English homeland as well as the West African slave coast, the Caribbean's plantation islands, and the Iberian Peninsula.

  • The Camp David Accords

    • The second agreement outlined a basis for the peace treaty six months later, in particular deciding the future of the Sinai peninsula.
    • Israel agreed to withdraw its armed forces from the Sinai, evacuate its 4,500 civilian inhabitants, and restore it to Egypt in return for normal diplomatic relations with Egypt, guarantees of freedom of passage through the Suez Canal and other nearby waterways (such as the Straits of Tiran), and a restriction on the forces Egypt could place on the Sinai peninsula, especially within 20–40 km from Israel.

  • The Armistice

    • The 38th parallel north—which divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half—was the original boundary between the United States and Soviet Union's brief administration areas of Korea at the end of World War II.
    • That conflict, which claimed over three million lives and divided the Korean Peninsula along ideological lines, commenced on 25 June 1950, with a full-front DPRK invasion across the 38th parallel, and ended in 1953 after international intervention pushed the front of the war back to near the 38th parallel.

  • African and Asian Origins

    • The route then crossed into the Arabian Peninsula, settling in places like the present-day United Arab Emirates and Oman, and then possibly going into the Indian Subcontinent.
    • As only the descendants of these humans are found outside Africa, some experts believe only a few people left the continent in a single migration to a settlement in the Arabian peninsula.

  • McClellan's Peninsular Campaign

    • McClellan altered his plan so that his forces would land at Fort Monroe and move northwest up the Virginia Peninsula, but Congress and the press were highly critical of what was perceived as a missed opportunity to catch the Confederates in their previous positions near Washington.
    • Magruder's second defensive along the peninsula, the Warwick Line, caught McClellan by surprise.

  • The Military Implementation of Containment

    • In line with this policy, the U.S. attempted to curb Soviet influence on the Korean Peninsula by occupying the southern part of that area.
    • When the United Nations Security Council voted to aid South Korea in stopping North Korean aggression, the United States agreed to send troops to the Korean Peninsula.

  • European Empires in North America

    • After the forming of Nueva Cádiz in Venezuela and Santa Cruz on the present-day Guajira peninsula, explorers led by Vasco Núez de Balboa conquered areas on the coast of present-day Colombia in 1502.
    • He explored areas to the north, looking for a Fountain of Youth, and landed on a peninsula on the coast of North America, which he named Florida.
    • The Spanish conquest of the Maya civilization—based in the Yucatán Peninsula of present-day Mexico and northern Central America—was a much longer campaign, lasting from 1551 to 1697.

  • Archaic Hunters and Gatherers

    • These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia but can also be found scattered around the Florida peninsula and along the Gulf of Mexico as far west as the Pearl River.