Marbella also hosts a WTA tennis tournament on red clay, the AndalucÃa Tennis Experience. From Marbella it is easy to reach other places, like Malaga and Algeciras, by bus. The area is also served by the A7 autovia, and the closest airport is at Malaga. Archaeological excavations have been made in the mountains around Marbella, which point at human habitation in Paleolithic and Neolithic times. There are also remains of Phoenician and later Carthaginian settlements in the area of Rio Real. In Roman times, the city was called Salduba.
During Islamic rule, the Moors built a castle in this city. The name Marbella, which is derived from Marbil-la, dates from this Islamic era. The traveler Ibn Battuta characterized the town as a pretty little town in a fertile district. In 1485, the city fell to Christian forces. In the 1940s, Marbella was a small jasmine-lined village with only 900 inhabitants. But this soon changed when Prince Max Egon zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his heir Alfonso de Hohenlohe experienced a problem with their Rolls-Royce in the vicinity.
Marbella was featured in the popular political thriller, Syriana. It was used as the location for a private party which an Arabian Emir hosts. Marbella was portrayed as an extremely affluent city with most cars at the entrance of the palace being very expensive. In the same year it appeared in Steven Spielberg's Munich in a very similar context. In 2006, there was an international advertisement advertising Marbella as a tourist destination. The song on the advert is aptly called Marbella and is performed by singer Cristie.