Salamanca (Spanish: [salaˈmaŋka] ) is a municipality and city in the autonomous community of Castile and León in Spain, and the capital of the province of Salamanca. Attached to the comarca of Campo Charro, the city lies on the northern half of the Meseta Central, in the western-central part of the Iberian Peninsula, straddling the Tormes river. As of 2024, with a population of 144,458, Salamanca is the 46th-largest city in Spain.
The Iron Age hilltop site of Cerro de San Vicente on the right bank of the Tormes is considered as the first human settlement in the current-day city. By the 3rd century BCE, the urban settlement in the nearby Teso de las Catedrales had consolidated, under the influence of Vaccaei and Vettones. Following Roman subjugation, the indigenous oppidum gradually became the Roman civitas of Salmantica. Little is known of the history of the place after the Migration Period. Christian settlement took hold in the 11th century under Raymond of Burgundy. For much of its history, Salamanca has been a college town linked to the University of Salamanca, one of the oldest in Western Europe, whose germ was founded in 1218 as a studium generale, holding the status of university since 1254. It acquired a great deal of recognition in the 16th century for the intellectual production of the so-called School of Salamanca. In addition, the city has also recently developed as a centre for Spanish-language learning.
