Seville

Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir. The population of the city of Seville was 703,206 as of 2009, ranking as the fourth largest city of Spain. Seville is more than 2,000 years old. The passage of the various civilizations, instrumental in its growth, has left the city a distinct personality, and a large and well-preserved historical centre. Although it has a strong medieval, renaissance and baroque heritage, the city received heavy influences from Arabic culture, which can be seen in the most famous monuments and places. The city was known from Roman times as Hispalis. After successive conquests of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica by the Vandals and the Visigoths during the 5th and 6th centuries, the city was taken by the Moors in 712 and renamed Išbīliya, derived from Hispalis, from which the present name "Sevilla" is derived. It was an important centre in Muslim Andalusia and it remained under Muslim control, under the authority of the Umayyad caliphate, the Almoravid empire and the Almohad dynasties, until falling to the Christian king Fernando III of Castile in 1248. The Great Plague of Seville in 1649 reduced the population by almost half, and it would not recover until the early 1800s.Seville's development in the 19th and 20th centuries was characterised by population growth and increasing industrialisation.