Movements to and from the rest of the EU and Melilla are subject to specific rules, provided for inter alia in the Accession Agreement of Spain to the Schengen Convention.

The name has been related to honey (Spanish: miel; Latin: mel; Ancient Greek: μέλι, méli) since Melilla was a notable site for beekeeping in antiquity,[11] a bee appearing prominently on the city's bronze coinage under Mauretanian rule.

After the Islamic conquest of North Africa, it fell under the Umayyads, Cordobans, Idrisids, Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids, and Wattasids.

[19] After the Catholic Monarchs' conquest of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492, their Secretary Hernando de Zafra [es] gathered intelligence about the sorry state of the North African coast with territorial expansion in mind.

[20] He sent agents to investigate, and subsequently reported to the Catholic Monarchs that, as of 1494, locals had expelled the authority of the Sultan of Fez and had offered to pledge loyalty.

[21] While the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas put Melilla and Cazaza, until then reserved to the Portuguese, under the sphere of Castile, the conquest of the city had to wait, delayed by the French occupation of Naples.

[24][25] No large-scale expansion into the Kingdom of Fez ensued, and, barring the enterprises of the Cardinal Cisneros along the Algerian coast in Mers El Kébir and Oran, and the rock of Badis in the territorial scope of the Kingdom of Fez, the Hispanic monarchy's imperial impetus was eventually directed elsewhere, to the Italian Wars against France, and, especially after 1519,[26] to the newly discovered continent across the Atlantic.

[31] During the late 17th century, Alaouite sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif attempted to conquer the presidio,[32] taking the outer fortifications in the 1680s and further unsuccessfully besieging Melilla in the 1690s.

[33] One Spanish officer reflected, "an hour in Melilla, from the point of view of merit, was worth more than thirty years of service to Spain.

In the late 19th century, as Spanish influence expanded in this area, the Crown authorized Melilla as the only centre of trade on the Rif coast between Tetuan and the Algerian border.

The value of trade increased, with goat skins, eggs and beeswax the principal exports, and cotton goods, tea, sugar and candles the chief imports.

[35] In a 1866 Hispano-Moroccan arrangement signed in Fes, both parties agreed to allow for the installment of a customs office near the border with Melilla, to be operated by Moroccan officials.

[36] The Treaty of Peace with Morocco that followed the 1859–60 War entailed the acquisition of a new perimeter for Melilla, bringing its area to that where the 12 km2 the autonomous city currently stands.

[37] Following the declaration of Melilla as a free port in 1863, the population began to increase, chiefly with Sephardi Jews fleeing from Tetouan who fostered trade in and out of the city.

[49] Melilla began to suffer from this, to which the instability brought by revolts against Muley Abdel Aziz in the hinterland also added,[50] although after 1905 Sultan pretender El Rogui (Bou Hmara) carried out a defusing policy in the area that favoured Spain.

[51] The French occupation of Oujda in 1907 compromised the Melillan trade with that city,[52] and the enduring instability in the Rif still threatened Melilla.

The city is arranged in a wide semicircle around the beach and the Port of Melilla, on the eastern side of the peninsula of Cape Tres Forcas, at the foot of Mount Gurugú [es] and around the mouth of the Río de Oro intermittent water stream, 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) above sea level.

The urban nucleus was originally a fortress, Melilla la Vieja, built on a peninsular mound about 30 meters (98 ft) in height.

[89] Seeking to address the water supply problem, works for the construction of a desalination plant in the Aguadú cliffs, projected to produce 22,000 m3 (29,000 cu yd) a day, started in November 2003.

[92] Relative to the Spanish average (and similarly to the Canary and Balearic Islands), the city's population spends a comparatively larger amount of money on bottled water.

[97] Melilla has been praised as an example of multiculturalism, being a small city in which one can find Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists represented.

[120] The urban system features a high degree of hierarchization, specialization and division of labour, with Melilla as chief provider of services, finance and trade; Nador as an eminently industrial city whereas the rest of Moroccan settlements found themselves in a subordinate role, presenting agro-town features and operating as providers of workforce.

[120] The asymmetry, as reflected for example in the provision of healthcare, has fostered situations such as the large-scale use of the Melillan health services by Moroccan citizens, with Melilla attending a number of urgencies more than four times the standard for its population in 2018.

[121] In order to satisfy the workforce needs of Melilla (mainly in areas such as domestic service, construction and cross-border bale workers, often under informal contracts), Moroccan inhabitants of the province of Nador were granted exemptions from visa requirements to enter the autonomous city.

[122] This development in turn induced a strong flux of internal migration from other Moroccan provinces to Nador, in order to acquire the aforementioned exemption.

[129] In 2020 works to remove the barbed wire from the top of the fence (meanwhile raising its height up to more than 10 metres (33 ft) in the stretches most susceptible to breaches) were commissioned to Tragsa [es].

[134] The United Nations, the African Union and a number of human rights groups condemned what they deemed excessive force used by Moroccan and Spanish border guards, although no lethal weapons were employed, and the deaths were later attributed to "mechanical asphyxiation".

In Morocco, Ceuta is frequently referred to as the "occupied Sebtah", and the Moroccan government has argued that the city, along with other Spanish territories in the region, are colonies.

[142] This argument was originally developed by one of the founders of the Moroccan Istiqlal Party, Alal-El Faasi, who openly advocated for Morocco to invade and occupy Melilla and other North African territories under Spanish rule.

Legal experts have claimed that other articles of the treaty could cover Spanish territories in North Africa but this interpretation has not been tested in practice.