Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 364,073 inhabitants in 2024, and 990,527 in its metropolitan area. Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center.