Valencia

History

Valencia, officially València, is the capital of the Valencian Community and the province of the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. With a population of 824,340, it is the third-largest city in Spain. The urban area of Valencia has 1.6 million people while the metropolitan region has 2.5 million. Valencia was founded as a Roman colony in 138 BC as Valentia Edetanorum. As an autonomous city in late antiquity, its militarization followed the onset of the threat posed by the Byzantine presence to the South, together with effective integration to the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in the late 6th century. Islamic rule and acculturation ensued in the 8th century, together with the introduction of new irrigation systems and crops. With the Aragonese Christian conquest in 1238, the city became the capital of the Kingdom of Valencia. Due to trade with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, Italian ports, and other Mediterranean locations, the city thrived in the 15th century and Valencia had become one of the largest European cities by the end of the century.