Iberian Peninsula, peninsula in southwestern Europe, occupied by Spain and Portugal. Its name derives from its ancient inhabitants that the Greeks called Iberians, probably because of the Ebro (Iberus), the second longest river on the peninsula (after the Tagus). The Pyrenees mountain range forms an effective land barrier in the northeast, separating the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe, and in the south in Gibraltar the peninsula is separated from North Africa by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. The Atlantic Ocean washes the northern, western, and southwestern coasts, and the Mediterranean Sea washes the southern and eastern coasts. Cabo Roca, in Portugal, is the westernmost point of continental Europe.
The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known that it hardly needed to be said; For example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to affirm that the Greeks had called “all Spain” Hiberia after the river Hiberus. The river appears in the Treaty of Ebro of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest in the Ebro. The fuller description of the treaty, established in Appian, uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us ending.
The early range of these natives, who geographers and historians place from southern Spain to southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by examples of a readable script expressing a still unknown language called "Iberian." Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credibility in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologization: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. In modern Basque, the word ibar means " valley"Or" irrigated meadow ", while ibai means" river ", but there is no evidence linking the etymology of the Ebro river with these Basque names.
