10th September: Gibraltar National Day

Gibraltar National day, which celebrates Gibraltar's first sovereignty referendum. Here are 10 things you might not know about Gibraltar:

1. Gibraltar has an area of just 2.3 square miles (6.0 km2) and a population of around 30,000, making it the fifth most densely populated territory in the world.
2. The name of the island comes from Arabic, Jabal Ṭāriq, meaning "Mountain of Tariq", after a general who invaded in 711. The name refers to the Rock.
3. Talking of the Rock, it is 426 m (1,398 ft) high and made of Jurassic limestone. It is known for being home to colonies of apes, and it has man made tunnels underneath it, known as the Galleries or the Great Siege Tunnels.
4. The official language is English, but most people speak Spanish as well, because it is so close to Spain. There are a number of other languages spoken by different ethnic groups such as Arabic, Hindi and Hebrew. Gibraltar has its own unique language, too - Llanito which is a hybrid of Andalusian Spanish and British English with smatterings of Maltese, Portuguese, Genoese Italian, Haketia (Ladino) and Hebrew.
5. The motto of Gibraltar is Nulli Expugnabilis Hosti (Latin for "No Enemy Shall Expel Us").
6. Gibraltar Airport is listed as one of the world's scariest airports, because of the strong cross winds around the Rock and across the Bay of Algeciras. The airport is unusual because it is within walking distance of the town and also because one of the the main streets, Winston Churchill Avenue, intersects with the runway so that traffic has to be stopped with barricades whenever a plane wants to take off or land - although tunnels are now being built that will divert the traffic underneath the runway.
7. Gibraltar is twinned with Funchal, Madeira (another place with a scary airport), and Ballymena in Northern Ireland (which doesn't have an airport at all).
8. Gibraltar was given to Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, so that Britain would withdraw from the War of the Spanish Succession. Spain has never really been happy about this and there have been several attempts to get it back; the political rumblings continue to this day.
9. Evidence of Neanderthal habitation in Gibraltar between 28,000 and 24,000 BC has been discovered, making Gibraltar the last known holdout of the Neanderthals.
10. The first recorded inhabitants were the Phoenicians, around 950 BC. At one time, Gibraltar was known as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the Greek legend of the creation of the Strait of Gibraltar by Heracles.