Almería, Spain

Almería, Spain: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Almería is a coastal city in southeastern Spain, situated along the Mediterranean Sea. The city serves as a submarine cable landing point, with one submarine cable making landfall here. That cable connects Almería to the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, an enclave located on the northern coast of Africa, establishing a direct undersea link between mainland Spain and one of its overseas territories.

The Almería-Melilla cable defines Almería's role in the submarine cable landscape as a domestic connection point rather than an intercontinental or regional hub. This corridor links the Spanish mainland to Melilla across a short but strategically meaningful stretch of Mediterranean waters, providing a dedicated undersea pathway between the two Spanish territories.

Cables Landing at Almería, Spain

The Almería-Melilla (ALME) cable is the sole submarine cable landing at Almería. Spanning 198 kilometres, the cable reached ready-for-service status in 1990 and remains in draft status in current records. Its two endpoints are both within Spain — the city of Almería on the Spanish mainland and the city of Melilla on the African coast — making it an entirely domestic cable in terms of national jurisdiction. The cable provides a direct undersea route across the Alboran Sea, the westernmost portion of the Mediterranean, connecting the two Spanish territories without passing through any foreign jurisdiction.

Regional Context

Within Spain's submarine cable network, Almería is among the more modestly connected landing points, hosting a single cable compared to peers such as Barcelona, which serves three cables, and several other locations including Bilbao, Conil de la Frontera, Alta Vista, Candelaria, and Granadilla de Abona, each of which host two cables. Almería's single-cable status reflects its specific geographic function as a terminus for the domestic link to Melilla rather than a node on broader international routes.

Network Role

Almería functions as a single-cable terminus within Spain's submarine cable infrastructure. Its role is narrowly defined: the city anchors the mainland end of the Almería-Melilla cable, providing an undersea connection between the Spanish mainland and the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the African continent. This is a domestic corridor rather than an international one, and Almería does not currently serve as a transit point for cables linking Spain to other countries.

Within the broader submarine cable graph of the western Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula, Almería represents a specialised node whose single cable serves an administratively important but geographically compact corridor, distinguishing it from Spain's other landing points that carry cables reaching across multiple countries or continents.