Valencia, officially València, is the capital of the province and autonomous community 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.