Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula, also known as Iberia, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is principally divided between Portugal and Spain, comprising most of their territory. It also includes Andorra and a small part of France along the peninsula's northeastern edge, as well as Gibraltar on its south coast, a small peninsula that forms an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. With an area of approximately 582000km2, it is the second largest European peninsula, after the Scandinavian.NameGreek nameThe English word Iberia was adapted from the use of the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία by Greek geographers under the rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabo's 'Iberia' was delineated from Keltikē (Gaul) by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") of there.The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with... Iberia." According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος" as far north as the river Rhône in France, but currently they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."