VALENCIA, a province, or, as it is called from its ancient title, a kingdom of Spain. It extends over 643 square leagues, and its population amounts to 825,059 souls, being the most densely peopled part of the peninsula. It appears by authentic data taken in the year 1808, that in the course of forty years prior to that date, the population had been doubled. Valencia is bounded on the north by Catalonia and part of Aragon, on the west by New Castile, on the south by Murcia, and on the east by the Mediterranean sea. Although, like the rest of Spain, Valencia is a mountainous country, so that two-thirds of it may be considered as desolate elevations, yet the rest of the province consists of level and beautiful valleys, covered with exquisite fruits, and other productions of a most valuable kind, as silk, rice, hemp, flax, and grain. It does not, however, raise wheat sufficient for its own consumption. Alicant is the most considerable trading port in Valencia. It is in the form of a half-moon on the shores of the sea. From this port the principal productions of the province are shipped for the different foreign markets. Notwithstanding the fertility of the soil, and the assiduous care exercised on the cultivation of it, the peasantry are in a state of poverty. Most of the lands are either the property of the corporations, or of nobles who hold them under the strict entail denominated mayorazo. These let them to tenants, and they again to sub-tenants; by which process the rent is raised to a rate that impoverishes the actual cultivators. The climate of this province on the sea-shore is by no means healthy, but at a little distance from the coast, where it is gently elevated. It is very favourable to longevity; and even on the coast they have been less severely visited by epidemic fevers than in the provinces of Andalusia and Murcia.

Valencia , a city of Spain, the capital of the province or kingdom of the same name. It is situated on the river Turia, which is not navigable, but is principally beneficial by its being adapted to the purposes of irrigation. It has however six spacious bridges over it, though at some seasons it is fordable. The city is about two miles from the sea, where the fortress of Graco is built to protect the landing, and a mole is projected, which, when accomplished, will be of vast advantage. The city is large, and nearly forms a circle. It has lofty walls of ancient construction, with some of the towers of the same date still standing. The streets are narrow and crooked, and almost destitute of pavement, and the whole place is very filthy.

Valencia is the seat of an archbishop; and the cathedral is endowed with an enormous revenue, great part of which is expended in the erection of religious edifices. The cathedral is a very large Gothic pile of building, but with a mixture of more modem taste, and has not much to recommend it; but the entrance is adorned in a most profuse manner, and contains some very good pictures. The other churches and convents are very numerous, and no city, even in Spain, has a greater proportion of ecclesiastics. The lorza or exchange is the best of the secular buildings. It is of the date of the fifteenth century, when architectural taste in Spain was at its zenith.

The city abounds with Roman antiquities; but the Moors, from having been early dispossessed of this province, have left behind them much fewer of their best remains than in those provinces which they held to a later period, when their manners had become more refined, and their means of erecting durable edifices more extensive.

The principal manufacture of this city is that of silk in all its various branches. It employs about 25,000 persons, and the silk annually used amounts to about 900,000 pounds. Sometimes the produce of silk is insufficient for the supply of all the looms, in which case many of the poor are unemployed, and to remedy this, a decree is in force, preventing the exportation of raw silk. The inhabitants of Valencia amount to about 160,000, of whom 100,000 are within the walls, and the rest in the extensive suburbs, where the working people employed in the silk manufactory reside.

Valencia contains a university, two public libraries, a seminary for youths of noble families, and several printing-offices. Lat. 39. 29. Long. 0. 24. W.