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. Alicante 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 province of Andalusia and Murcia.