Valencia brief introduction

Is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia. The region is divided into three provinces:Alicante, Castellón and
Valencia.
It has 518 km of Mediterranean coastline and covers 23,259 km2 of land with 5.02 million inhabitants (2008).
The official languages are Spanish and Valencian.The region's capital is the city of Valencia.
Valencian is traditionally spoken in the coastal areas rather than inland, where large areas have Spanish as their traditional language,also those areas incorporated into the provinces of Alicante and Valencia at their creation in 1833 and which did not form part of the historical Kingdom of Valencia
Valencia has agenerally mild climate, heavily influenced by the neighbouring Mediterranean sea.
There are only two major rivers: the Segura in Alicante province (whose source is in Andalucía) and Xúquer inValencia province (whose source is in Castilla La Mancha) both are subjected to very intense human regulation for cities, industries and -specially- agricultural consumption.
TheValencian gastronomy is of great variety, although their more international dishes are rice based, like the worldwide known Valencian Paella. The rice is a basic ingredient in many of the typicaldishes, like the "arròs (rice) a banda", the "arròs a la pedra", "arròs negre", "arròs amb costra", "arròs caldós", and many more.
The Valencian Mediterranean climate favors thecultivation of citrus fruits and vegetables, with the cultivation of the orange being perhaps of highest importance as one of the typical fruits of Valencian agriculture.
Football is the mostwidely known sport. There are teams in every town or village, four of which are currently playing in La Liga, Spain's premier league: Valencia CF, Levante UD, Hércules CF and Villarreal CF.