Fuerte de La Cortadura

Cádiz, Spain, Spain

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Fuerte de La Cortadura is an early 19th-century bastioned fort on the beach of the same name in Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain, built to protect the city's last land access during the Napoleonic invasion.

Designed by military engineer Antonio Hurtado in 1801 and hastily constructed between 1808 and 1811 with civilian help amid the Peninsular War, it expanded earlier 18th-century defenses like the Reducto de los Dos Mares to block French advances across the isthmus linking Cádiz to San Fernando.

Though incomplete with only three of five planned bastions—Santa María, San José, and one southern flank—it played a key role repelling enemy assaults during the 1810-1812 siege, later bisected by a modern road and now partly occupied by military facilities.