Seville is a place.
Seville ( [ səˈvɪl ] Sevilla [ seˈβiʎa ] , [ seˈβi ʝa ] ) is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville , Spain . Seville has a municipal population of about 703,000 , and a metropolitan population of about 1.5 million , making it the fourth-largest city in Spain and the 30th most populous municipality in the European Union . The Seville harbour , located about 80 km from the Atlantic Ocean , is the only river port in Spain . Coinciding with the Baroque period of European history , the 17th century in Seville represented the most brilliant flowering of the city 's culture ; then began a gradual economic and demographic decline as silting in the Guadalquivir forced the trade monopoly to relocate to the nearby port of Cádiz .