The Emirate of Córdoba was a medieval Islamic kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula. Its founding in the mid-eighth century would mark the beginning of seven hundred years of Muslim rule in what is now Spain and Portugal.

The territories of the Emirate, located in what the Arabs called Al-Andalus, had formed part of the Umayyad Caliphate since the early eighth century. After the caliphate was overthrown by the Abbasids in 750, the Umayyad prince Abd ar-Rahman I fled the former capital of Damascus and established an independent emirate in Iberia in 756. The provincial capital of Córdoba was made the capital, and within decades grew into one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the world. After initially recognizing the legitimacy of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, in 929 Emir Abd al-Rahman III declared the caliphate of Córdoba, with himself as caliph.