The commerce and industries are of consider able importance. The tobacco factory employs 6000 hands, and there are iron foundries and machine shops, and manufactures of chocolate. soap, perfumes, beverages, corks, silks, and musi cal instruments, including pianos. The suburb of Triana is noted for its manufactures of pot tery, and the large Convent of La Cartuja has since ]S39 been used as a factory for ceramic products, employing 2000 hands and equipped with modern machinery. The imports of Seville in 1898 amounted to $2,364,900, and the exports to $7,190.510, more than half of which went to England. The chief exports are iron ore (381, 573 tons in I SOS), lead, copper, mercury, and other minerals, oranges, olives and olive oil, cork, grain, and wine. The population, in 1887, was 143,182; in 1900, 147,271.
The Hispal of the Pha.nicians, the Hispalis of the Romans, was corrupted by the Moors into Ishbillialt, from which the Spanish name of the city was derived. Seville was a place of great importance in the latter period of Roman domin ion; became the capital of Southern Spain dur ing the ascendency of the Vandals and the Goths, and was the scene of two notable Church coun cils (590 and 619). It fell into the bands of
the Arabs in the eighth century, under whom it prospered greatly, its popnlation reaching 400, 000. In 1026 it became the capital of the Moor ish kingdom ruled by the Abadites (see ABAD), from whom it passed, in 1091, to the Atmore vides, whose rule was supplanted in 1147 by that of the Almobades. In 1248 it was taken by Fer dinand III. of Castile, when 300,000 Moors left for Granada and Africa. From this time it was the capital of Castile, and when Spain was unit ed it was for a while the seat of the Court until Charles V. made Valladolid his residence. The city rose to extraordinary prosperity after the discovery of the New World, when it became the residence of princely merchants, and the mart of the colonies, but its trade was afterwards trans ferred to Cadiz. In 1810 it was taken and rav aged by Soult. Consult: Waekernagel, Sevilla (Basel, 1870) ; Perim, Vont Guadalquivir. Than derungcn in Sevilla (Vienna, 1888); K. E. Schmidt, Sevilla (Leipzig, 1902).