 Hello. I am the storyteller. And today we will talk about Barcelona. Barcelona is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits, its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the province of Barcelona and is home to around 4.8 million people, making it the fifth most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, the Ruhr area, Madrid, and Milan. Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the county of Barcelona. After merging with the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona continued to be an important city in the crown of Aragon as an economic and administrative centre of this crown, and the capital of the Principality of Catalonia. Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona. Barcelona is one of the world's leading tourist economic, trade fair and cultural centres, and its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, sports, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the major global cities. It is a major cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world and a financial centre. In 2009 the city was ranked Europe's third and one of the world's most successful as a city brand. In the same year the city was ranked Europe's fourth best city for business and fastest improving European city, with growth improved by 17 per cent per year, and the city has been experiencing strong and renewed growth for the past three years. Barcelona is also the home of one of the world's most famous football clubs, FC Barcelona. Since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. Barcelona is a transport hub, with the port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port, an international airport, Barcelona El Prat Airport, which handles over 50 million passengers per year, an extensive motorway network, at a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe. The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian barcano, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin an Iberian script as, in ancient Greek sources as beta-alpha ro capa iota nu nu barcanon, and in Latin as Bercino, Barcelona and Barcelona. Some older sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the third century BC, but there is no evidence that Barcelona was ever a Carthaginian settlement, or that its name in antiquity, Bercino, had any connection with the Barsad family of Hamilcar. During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barcanona, Barcelona, Barcelona, and Barcanona. Internationally, Barcelona's name is wrongly abbreviated to Barca. However, this name refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna. Another common abbreviation is BCN, which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona El Prat Airport. The city is also referred to as the Chitat Compil in Catalan, and Ciudad Condol in Spanish, owing to its past as the seat of the count of Barcelona.