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In 1552, the Aragonite watchtower was demolished and the larger Fort Saint Elmo was built in its place. Back then, the only building on the peninsula was a small watchtower dedicated to Erasmus of Formia (Saint Elmo), which had been built in 1488.

The building of a city on the Sciberras Peninsula had been proposed by the Order of Saint John as early as 1524. The nave of Saint John's Co-Cathedral Grandmaster's Palace Valletta and the Grand Harbour c. Order of Saint John The Ottoman army bombs the Knights' Three Cities from the peninsula of Sciberras during the 1565 Great Siege. Recent scholarly studies have however shown that the Xeberras phrase is of Punic origin and means 'the headland' and 'the middle peninsula' as it actually is. The city is noted for its fortifications, consisting of bastions, curtains and cavaliers, along with the beauty of its Baroque palaces, gardens and churches. Valletta is also the sunniest city in Europe. Sometimes called an "open-air museum", Valletta was chosen as the European Capital of Culture in 2018. The city has 320 monuments, all within an area of 0.55 square kilometres (0.21 sq mi), making it one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world. The city was officially recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980. The city is Baroque in character, with elements of Mannerist, Neo-Classical and Modern architecture, though the Second World War left major scars on the city, particularly the destruction of the Royal Opera House. The city was named after Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island from an Ottoman invasion during the Great Siege of Malta.

Valletta's 16th-century buildings were constructed by the Knights Hospitaller. Valletta is the southernmost capital of Europe, and at just 0.61 square kilometres (0.24 sq mi), it is the European Union's smallest capital city. According to the data from 2020 by Eurostat, the Functional Urban Area and metropolitan region covered the whole island and has a population of 480,134. Located on the main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population within administrative limits in 2014 was 6,444.

Valletta ( / v ə ˈ l ɛ t ə/, Maltese: il-Belt Valletta, Maltese pronunciation: ) is an administrative unit and the capital of Malta.