Gibraltar City Status Was Forgotten

In 2022, researchers found that Queen Victoria had already granted Gibraltar city status back in 1842. Gibraltar had applied for city status as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, but its bid did not make the official winners list. When researchers checked the National Archives, they discovered the old royal grant and confirmed that Gibraltar had technically been a city for 180 years. The discovery turned a failed application into a delayed correction of a status everyone had overlooked.

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