Village
Llíria is the capital of the comarca of El Camp de Túria, in the second metropolitan ring of Valencia, with 25,333 inhabitants (INE 2025), built on the ancient Iberian city of Edeta, capital of Edetania, whose site of the Tosal de Sant Miquel is preserved some 500 metres from the historic centre. The place name itself comes from the Arabic Lyria, which in turn would derive from the Iberian name Leiría; during the Middle Ages, the present-day Vila Vella was an Islamic medina bearing that name. The municipality extends over the foothills to the left bank of the Turia river, also irrigated by the Fuente de San Vicente, which has supplied the huerta since Roman times. In 2019 it was declared a UNESCO Creative City of Music.
Nature
The remains of Edeta, one of the most important Iberian cities and capital of Edetania, which in the 1st century BC stretched from the Xúquer to the Palancia. It has yielded the finest collection of painted pottery of the Iberian culture, with pieces such as the Warriors Vase.
Activity
Llíria celebrates its main festival in honour of San Miguel Arcángel, on 29 September, with the saint's image brought down on the 28th and taken back up on the 30th; it also celebrates San Vicente Ferrer on the first Monday after Easter, with a medieval market, and la Purísima and el Remedio at the end of August and beginning of September.
Monument
Museum located at the top of the Vila Vella of Llíria, founded in 1997 on the ruins of the old Islamic citadel and the medieval Christian castle, in a building designed by architects Gemma Casany and Ignacio Docavo. It houses an important Iberian, Roman and medieval archaeological collection: Iberian pottery from the excavations at the Tosal de San Miguel, with vessels featuring epigraphic and figurative decoration; one of the most important hoards of denarii in the whole of Roman Hispania, with around 6,000 silver coins, and the reconstruction of a thermopolium or Roman tavern; and, from the medieval period, 14th- and 15th-century pottery together with two panel paintings from the church of la Sangre.
Monument
The Roman mausoleums of Liria, protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 1990, stand in the city's calle San Vicente, within the necropolis of ancient Edeta, the Ibero-Roman city on which Liria is built. They are three rectangular buildings, each made up of a stepped base, a podium and a funerary chamber where the cremation of the deceased took place. In the early 21st century they became enclosed within an apartment building, but they were recovered and can be visited today, as one of the best-preserved Roman funerary complexes known.
Activity
The Moors and Christians of Llíria (Valencia) are held between late August and early September, as part of the festivities of la Purísima and el Remedio, the legacy of the Franciscans and the Trinitarians respectively. The programme includes parades of Moors and Christians, cavalcades, bous al carrer and giants and big-heads, among other traditional events.
Monument
A Roman bath complex and oracular sanctuary of some 3,600 m², with separate baths for men and women fed by the San Vicente spring, discovered beneath the town of Llíria, the ancient Edeta.
Monument
A monastery founded by royal decree by James II on the hill of San Miguel, altered by Martin the Humane in 1406 and with a Rococo church built between 1756 and 1774; it remains an active centre of worship and local pilgrimage.
Historical milestone
The great Edetan Iberian city, which dominated a wide territory from its hill, was flattened in the year 76 BC during the Roman civil wars; its inhabitants later came down to the plain and raised the Roman Edeta-Lauro.
Historical milestone
The Muslim town of Lyria fell into Christian hands the same year as Valencia; the resettlement with colonists arriving from the north was organized around 1248 and 1249, over the township of the present-day Vila Vella.
Historical milestone
With the War of the Spanish Succession ended in his favor, Philip V created in 1707 the duchy of Liria and granted it to the Duke of Berwick, the general who had commanded his troops; the title was later joined to the house of Alba.
Historical milestone
UNESCO added the city in 2019 to its network of creative cities for music, recognition of a wind-band tradition that keeps two century-old musical societies and thousands of musicians in a small municipality.