Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tarifa

TARIFA, a seaport of Spain, in the province of Cadiz, at the extreme south point of the Peninsula, 59 miles south-east from Cadiz and (by land) 21 miles west-south-west from Gibraltar. The town is nearly quadrangular, with narrow crooked streets, and is still surrounded by its old Moorish walls. On its east side, just within these, stands the alcazar. The rocky island in front of the town, connected with the mainland by a causeway, is strongly fortified, and in some sense commands the Strait of Gibraltar. It has a lighthouse, 135 feet high, which has a range of 30 miles. The population within the municipal limits was 12,234 in 1877. Anchovy and tunny fishing is carried on, and there is some coasting trade. The manufactures (leather and earthenware) are unimportant. The oranges of Tarifa are famed for their sweetness.

Tarifa is the Julia Joza of Strabo, between Gades and Belon, which, according to that writer, was colonized by Romans and the removed inhabitants of Zelis in Mauretania Tingitana. The Julia Transducta or Traducta of coins and of Ptolemy appears to be the same place. Its present name (Arabic Jazirat Ṭarif) is derived from Ṭarif, the forerunner of Ṭarik (see vol. xvi. p. 573). After a long siege it was taken from the Moors in 1292 by Sancho lV. of Castile, who entrusted it to the keeping of Alonzo Perez de Guzman; the heroic defence by the latter, commemorated in the Romancero, earned for him the name of Guzman "el Bueno." It was in the defence of Tarifa that Alfonso XI. gained the battle of Salado, a short distance to the westward, in 1340. The place was successfully defended against the French by Gough in 1812.