page_title: Valencia
section_title: Roman colony
hierarchical_section_title: Valencia / History / Roman colony
caption_attribution_description: Català: Museu d'Història de València, detall del mosaic de la Medusa.
context_page_description: Valencia, officially València, is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona, surpassing 800,000 inhabitants in the municipality. The wider urban area also comprising the neighbouring municipalities has a population of around 1.6 million people. Valencia is Spain's third largest metropolitan area, with a population ranging from 1.7 to 2.5 million depending on how the metropolitan area is defined. The Port of Valencia is the 5th busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container port on the Mediterranean Sea. The city is ranked as a Beta-global city in the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
  Valencia was founded as a Roman colony by the consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 BC, and called Valentia Edetanorum. In 714 Moroccan and Arab Moors occupied the city, introducing their language, religion and customs; they implemented improved irrigation systems and the cultivation of new crops as well. Valencia was the capital of the Taifa of Valencia.
context_section_description: Valencia is one of the oldest cities in Spain, founded in the Roman period, c. 138 BC, under the name "Valentia Edetanorum". A few centuries later, with the power vacuum left by the demise of the Roman imperial administration, the Catholic Church assumed the reins of power in the city, coinciding with the first waves of the invading Germanic peoples (Suevi, Vandals and Alans, and later the Visigoths).
caption: Detail of 2nd century Roman mosaic found in the city
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