Seville has had various walled enclosures throughout its history. We know that the city was already walled in Roman times, although practically nothing has survived from those primitive walls to this day. The canvases that we can still see today in some areas of the city correspond to the refortification of the city undertaken in the last period of Muslim domination (XII-XIII).

Between the Almoravids and the Almohads they built more than seven kilometers of wall, the largest perimeter in medieval Europe. According to Miguel Ángel Tabales, up to 166 towers were interspersed in them, with 13 doors and 6 shutters. Most of these walls were demolished, especially in the 19th century, when a mentality prevailed that linked modernity with the demolition of the old medieval fence. Fortunately, some fragments have survived to this day, highlighting among them the stretch of about half a kilometer known as the Macarena Walls. At its ends, two of the city's historic gates, the Córdoba gate and the Arco de la Macarena, are also preserved, although highly modified.