San Roque

When British and Dutch forces took Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish inhabitants of the city did not simply scatter. More than 5,000 of Gibraltar's roughly 7,000 residents relocated to a new settlement built around the chapel of San Roque, on a 109-metre hill nearby. Around 2,000 others fled to Los Barrios and Algeciras, and only 47 stayed behind on the Rock.

The new town inherited Gibraltar's official honours, titles, and heraldic distinctions, which is why San Roque still carries the formal title "Most Noble and Most Loyal City of San Roque, where that of Gibraltar resides." It also took on the eastern portion of Gibraltar's former municipal territory, with coastline on both the Bay of Algeciras and the Mediterranean.

In 1735, a new settlement called La Línea de la Concepción grew up around the fortifications facing Gibraltar. It remained part of San Roque's municipality until 1870, when it separated to form its own council.

The original chapel of San Roque, which gave the town its name and its founding point, no longer stands in its first location. It was rebuilt near the Diego Salinas complex — a former military barracks turned municipal building. The hilltop site of the original chapel became the Church of Santa María la Coronada.

Today San Roque is a substantial municipality with a significant industrial base, including the Gibraltar–San Roque oil refinery, a petrochemical complex, and several combined-cycle power plants. In 2006, the town marked its third centenary with a series of events, including a special council session attended by the then Prince and Princess of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón and Letizia Ortiz, and the President of the Junta de Andalucía, Manuel Chaves. At that session, Prince Felipe was named the city's honorary perpetual mayor. The centenary programme also included a chess open tournament won by the then world champion, Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov.

San Roque's old town was the first place in the Campo de Gibraltar region to be declared a Historic-Artistic Site by Spain's Ministry of Culture.

At the top of the hill stands the Church of Santa María la Coronada, built in 1735 on the site of the original San Roque chapel. It is dedicated to the patron saint of both San Roque and Gibraltar, serves as the start and finish point of the town's Holy Week processions, and is the burial place of the Spanish Enlightenment poet José de Cadalso.

Immediately beside the church, the Plaza de Armas is a pedestrian square with a notable place in bullfighting history: it was here, in 1720, that Manuel Ballón "El Africano" performed the first recorded pass with a muleta. The square also served as the seat of San Roque's town council until 2009.

Nearby, the Palacio de los Gobernadores functioned as the military command headquarters for Gibraltar from its construction until the command was moved to Algeciras.

The original chapel of San Roque itself was eventually rebuilt in the grounds of the Diego Salinas complex, a former barracks now used as a municipal building.

Just above the Plaza de Armas, in the highest part of the Barrio de los Cañones, the Mirador Poeta Domingo de Mena offers views across the Bay of Algeciras and towards North Africa. Two Spanish cannons used during the Great Siege of Gibraltar (1779–1783) are on display there.

To the north of the old town, the Fuente María España is considered one of San Roque's landmarks. Beyond it, the Pinar del Rey, a pine forest straddling the boundary between San Roque and Castellar de la Frontera, dates to 1800 and has a recreational area with picnic and barbecue facilities on its southern edge.

At the mouth of the River Guadarranque, within the bay's perimeter, lies the archaeological site of Carteia — originally a Carthaginian city and later the first Roman colony established outside the Italian peninsula. Excavations have uncovered garum-production workshops and a theatre, and a circus is believed to exist on the site. Discovered in 1926, Carteia is protected as a heritage asset. San Roque also has 15 kilometres of coastline with beaches on both the Bay of Algeciras and the Mediterranean.