Villarreal, officially called Vila-real, is a city in the province of Castellón which is part of the Valencian Community in the east of Spain.
The city is located at 42 m above sea level, 7 km to the south of the province's capital. Villareal is separated from Castelló de la Plana by the Millars River. It has 51,367 inhabitants, most of them living in the urban area that covers about 10.7% of its comarca's 55.4 km² surface. Ranked by population, it is the second-largest city in the province, and fifteenth in the Valencian Community.
The city was founded with royal status by King James I of Aragon in 1274 during his campaign to regain Muslim territory in present-day Valencia during the Reconquista. It later became an agricultural centre for orange cultivation, and more recently a centre for the ceramics industry.
The city is the birthplace of Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea who was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist of the Romantic period. He is also the composer of Gran Vals, an excerpt of which was used in a popular Nokia ringtone.