Chafarinas Islands

Three islands Spain won by a matter of hours

The Chafarinas are a compact Spanish archipelago of three rocky islands sitting 3.3 kilometres off Morocco's northeastern coast, near the town of Ras Kebdana. In January 1848, France dispatched a naval expedition under Colonel MacMahon to claim the uninhabited islands and use them to monitor restless tribes along the Moroccan-Algerian border. Spain's consul in Oran got wind of the plan, Madrid sent a faster warship from Málaga, and the Spanish flag was flying before the French arrived. The islands have belonged to Spain ever since, claimed in the name of Queen Isabella II.

A church, a cemetery and thirty soldiers

Only the central island, Isla de Isabel II, is occupied. It supports a garrison of around 30 soldiers, a lighthouse, the church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción built between 1851 and 1853, and a small cemetery. The civilian population that once lived here peaked at 736 in 1910, swollen by construction workers and seasonal fishermen, then dwindled steadily as the islands lost their economic purpose. To the west, Isla del Congreso is the largest of the three at 25.6 hectares and rises to 137 metres; Isla del Rey, to the east, is the smallest. A causeway once connected Isabel II to Rey, destroyed by a storm in 1915.

Where the last monk seal in Spain disappeared

The Chafarinas hold an outsized place in Mediterranean ecology. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s they were home to the last Mediterranean monk seal living in Spanish territory, a species now critically endangered across the entire sea. The islands are also one of the world's most important breeding sites for Audouin's gull, an endangered species found almost nowhere else in such numbers. BirdLife International recognises the archipelago as an Important Bird Area. Nine of eleven recorded marine invertebrate species found in the surrounding waters are considered endangered.

No civilian access, Morocco just across the water

The Chafarinas are an active military installation with no public access. Morocco has disputed Spanish sovereignty since independence in 1956 and the islands remain a recurring point of tension, with Spain reinforcing its garrison during periods of heightened Moroccan rhetoric. The closest base for anyone curious enough to look across the water is the Moroccan town of Ras Kebdana, 3.3 kilometres away on the mainland.