Vejer de la Frontera

Vejer has been occupied since the early Palaeolithic, was fortified in the Bronze Age, and shows traces of Tartessian and Roman settlement beneath its current walls. In 711, after the Battle of Guadalete, it fell to Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad and remained under Arab rule for five and a half centuries, known then as Bashir. The castle gateway, sections of the walls, and the tight layout of the old streets all date from this period.

Christian reconquest came twice: first in 1250 under Fernando III, then definitively from 1264, completed by 1285. That same year, Sancho IV granted lordship over Vejer to the Order of Santiago, though the Order never took possession. In 1307 it passed to Guzmán el Bueno, and the town was subsequently held by the Dukes of Medina Sidonia for centuries.

The Battle of Trafalgar was fought in 1805 off the nearby cape, on what was then Vejer's coastal territory — an engagement that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Spanish overseas empire. During the Spanish Civil War the town suffered violence, political purges, killings of local officials, and the burning of its parish church.

Vejer was designated a historic-artistic monument in 1976. Its listed heritage includes the castle, Roman aqueduct of Santa Lucía, several stretches of medieval walls, and towers such as the Torre del Mayorazgo, Torre de San Juan, and Torre de la Corredera. The Church of the Divine Saviour is built in Mudéjar and Gothic style on the foundations of a former mosque.

The Ermita de Nuestra Señora de la Oliva stands on the site of a Visigothic chapel and contains paintings by Juan Correa.