Caliphate of Córdoba around the year 1000

Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Muslim states in modern Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and a part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th century). For nearly 100 years, from the 9th century to the 10th, al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids. The name describes the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. These boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.