Lucca is the capital of the province of the same name in northwestern Tuscany. With approximately 85,000 inhabitants, Lucca is situated in a broad alluvial plain, 19 meters above sea level, near the Serchio River, between the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the Tyrrhenian Coast and the Pisan hills. It is an important city for art and traditional culture, presenting a vital historic center of extraordinary value, which has conserved almost intact the thick urban network of houses, towers, medieval churches, Renaissance palaces and 19th-century piazzas. Lucca today is a flowering commercial and industrial center and an important area for the paper, chemical, metal mechanic, textile and agricultural (olive and wine) industries.