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We study the geometric significance of Leinster's notion of magnitude for a smooth manifold with boundary of arbitrary dimension, motivated by open questions for the unit disk in $\mathbb{R}^2$. For a large class of distance functions, including embedded submanifolds of Euclidean space and Riemannian manifolds satisfying a technical condition, we show that the magnitude function is well defined for $R\gg 0$ and admits a meromorphic continuation to sectors in $\mathbb{C}$. In the semiclassical limit $R \to \infty$, the magnitude function admits an asymptotic expansion, which determines the volume, surface area and integrals of generalized curvatures. Lower-order terms are computed by black box computer algebra. We initiate the study of magnitude analogues to classical questions in spectral geometry and prove an asymptotic variant of the Leinster-Willerton conjecture.