The silk industry replaced the wool industry as Valencia's most important industry during the seventeenth century. This persisted until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the silk industry almost completely disappeared due to mechanization and foreign competition. At the end of the eighth century, annual production of silk amounted to over  1,800,000 meters of silk cloth and employed, both directly and indirectly, a third of the city's population, helping to give the modern-day neighborhood of Velluters (“Velvet-makers”) its name. It was there that the majority of the workshops were located and where the School of the High Art of Silk can still be found today.