1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Villarreal

VILLARREAL, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón de la Plana; 4 m. from the Mediterranean Sea, near the right bank of the river Mijares, and on the Barcelona-Valencia railway. Pop. (1900) 16,068. Villarreal has a station on the light railway between Onda and the seaports of Castellón de la Plana and Burriana. Under Moorish rule, and up to the expulsion of the Moriscoes in 1609, it was the headquarters of a flourishing trade, and in modern times its industries have revived. Palm-groves, churches with blue-tiled cupolas, and houses with flat roofs and view-turrets (miradores) to some extent preserve the Moorish character of the town. There are extensive orange-groves, watered by the irrigation canal of Castellón, which is a good example of Moorish engineering skill. The local industries include manufactures of paper, woollen goods and spirits.