Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous region of Andalusia, Spain. It is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, Beiro, Darro and Genil, at an elevation of 738 metres above sea level. At the 2005 census, the population of the city of Granada proper was 236,982, and the population of the entire urban area was estimated to be 472,638, ranking as the 13th-largest urban area of the Spanish Kingdom. About 3.3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these (31%) coming from South America. Its nearest airport is FGL Airport.
The Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is one of the most famous items of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian historical legacy that makes Granada a hot spot among cultural and tourist cities in Spain. The Almohad urbanism with some fine examples of Moorish and Morisco constructions is preserved at the part of the city called the Albaicín.
Granada is also well-known within Spain due to the prestigious University of Granada and, nowadays, vibrant night-life. In fact, it is said that it is one of the three best cities for college students (the other two are Salamanca and Santiago de Compostela).
The city has been inhabited from the dawn of history. There was an Ibero-Celtic settlement here, which made contact in turn with Phoenicians, Carthagenians and Greeks. By the 5th century BCE, the Greeks had established a colony which they named Elibyrge or Elybirge. Under Roman rule, in the early centuries CE, this name had become “Illiberis”. As Illiberis, the city minted its own coins. The Visigoths maintained the importance of the city as a centre of both ecclesiastical and civil administration and also established it as a military stronghold. It was also managed by Byzantines for 60 years.
A Jewish community established itself in what was effectively a suburb of the city, called “Gárnata” or “Gárnata al-yahud” (Granada of the Jews). It was with the help of this community that Moorish forces under Tariq ibn-Ziyad first took the city in 711, though it was not fully secured until 713. They referred to it under the Iberian name “Ilbira”, the remaining Christian community calling this “Elvira”, and it became the capital of a province of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Civil conflicts that wracked the Caliphate in the early eleventh century led to the destruction of the city in 1010. In the subsequent reconstruction, the suburb of Gárnata was incorporated in the city, and the modern name in fact derives from this. With the arrival of the Zirid dynasty in 1013, Granada became an independent emirate Taifa of Granada. By the end of the eleventh century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach what is now the site of the Alhambra.