Arrive in Gibraltar on the morning of 10 September and the first thing you notice is that the colour has been turned up. Main Street is a corridor of red and white from the Convent down to Casemates, flags hang off every balcony, and roughly the entire population of a territory of 6.8 square kilometres appears to be wearing the same two colours at the same time. It looks like a festival. It is actually a vote. Gibraltar National Day is one of the most misunderstood dates in the European calendar. Most guides describe the parade, the music and the fireworks and stop there. What they tend to skip is what is being commemorated, why the date is 10 September specifically, and why the centrepiece of the day is not a concert but a political rally. This piece answers the question underneath the bunting: what is Gibraltar National Day, and what is it actually for. Gibraltar National Day is the official national day of Gibraltar, held every 10 September, and it is a public holiday. It commemorates the sovereignty referendum of 10 September 1967, in which Gibraltarians voted overwhelmingly to remain under British sovereignty rather than pass to Spain. It has been celebrated annually since 1992. The colours worn across the territory are red and white because those are the colours of the Gibraltar flag. If you want the practical version, the programme, the timings and where to stand, we have a separate [Gibraltar National Day 2026 visitor guide](/blog/gibraltar-national-day-2026). In the mid 1960s Spain was pressing its claim to Gibraltar at the United Nations and tightening restrictions at the frontier. The response from London and from Gibraltar was to put the question directly to the people who lived there. On 10 September 1967 Gibraltarians were asked to choose between passing under Spanish sovereignty and remaining under British sovereignty with institutions of self government. The result was not close. It was one of the most lopsided free votes in modern European history. | The 1967 referendum | Result | | Remain British, with self governing institutions | 12,138 | | Pass under Spanish sovereignty | 44 | | Total votes cast | 12,182 | | Date | 10 September 1967 | Forty four votes. In a territory where everybody knows everybody, that number has passed into local folklore, and Gibraltarians still refer to it with a certain dry pride. Spain rejected the referendum's legitimacy, and in 1969 General Franco responded by closing the land frontier entirely. It stayed shut for sixteen years, splitting families and cutting the territory off from its hinterland, and was not fully reopened until 1985. That closure is the reason the 1967 vote is remembered as a cost rather than a celebration, and it is a large part of why the day still carries an edge. Here is the part that surprises people: National Day is younger than most visitors assume. There was no annual commemoration for a quarter of a century after the referendum. The first Gibraltar National Day was held on 10 September 1992, at John Mackintosh Square, organised by the Self Determination for Gibraltar Group to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the vote. It began as a civic campaign rather than a government ceremony, and it has been held every year since. That origin explains the character of the day. It was built from the ground up as an assertion of self determination, not designed from above as a tourist attraction. Everything else, the music, the fancy dress, the fireworks over the harbour, grew around that core over the following three decades. The colours are not arbitrary and they are not a football strip. Red and white are the colours of the flag of Gibraltar, which is a banner of the Arms of Gibraltar granted by Royal Warrant of Isabella of Castile on 10 July 1502. The flag carries a three towered red castle on a white field, with a gold key hanging from the castle gate into the red band beneath. The symbolism is direct: the castle is Gibraltar as a fortress, and the key is Gibraltar as the lock on the entrance to the Mediterranean. There is a certain historical irony in a territory asserting its refusal to become Spanish while flying arms granted by a Queen of Castile, and Gibraltarians are entirely aware of it. On National Day you will see that castle and key on flags, shirts, faces, dogs, prams and shop windows, from one end of Main Street to the other. For most of its life, National Day ended with one of the largest mass balloon releases on earth. Thirty thousand red and white balloons, one for every resident of Gibraltar, went up together and drifted out over the Strait. It was the defining image of the day and it ran from the very first National Day in 1992. It does not happen any more. After a long campaign by the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, the Environmental Safety Group and the Bluefin Open Water Swimming Club, supported by the United Nations Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh, the release was ended in 2016 on environmental g