Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس, romanised: al-ʾAndalus) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula as well as Septimania under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed through a series of conquests that Western historiography has traditionally characterised as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.