Marseille

Marseille is a big city in France. It is right next to the sea.

It has been a port for a very long time.

Marseille is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southern France. It is the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and for a long time its life has been tied to the sea, Universalis says.

France's statistics office, INSEE, counted 886,040 people in the city in its 2023 census. That is close to the 889,029 it counted in 1968; the population fell to about 800,000 in 1990 and 1999 and has grown again since.

Universalis describes Marseille as the prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, a city long bound to the sea that left many administrative and cultural roles to Aix-en-Provence; its urban area passed 1.7 million people in 2012.

INSEE's census series for the commune runs from 889,029 (1968) and 908,600 (1975) down to 800,550 (1990) and 798,430 (1999), then up to 886,040 (2023), with 3,682.3 people per km².

Marseille began around the Old Port, a harbor by the sea.

Two old forts stand beside it.

Marseille began around a narrow inlet sheltered from the waves, the Lacydon. It is now the Old Port, which became the central point of the city in the 17th century, Universalis says. A small coastal stream once flowed into it, roughly where a street called the Canebière runs now.

Two forts, Saint-Jean and Saint-Nicolas, were built in the time of Vauban, in the 17th century. They still stand over the Old Port, Universalis notes.

Universalis explains that Massalia's site was a calanque well protected from the swell; south-facing hillsides, sheltered from the northwest winds, overlooked the bay of the Lacydon, where a small coastal stream flowed in along a line roughly followed by today's Canebière.

In the Middle Ages a wall enclosed an upper town on the hill and a lower, merchant town around the port, today's Old Port. The 17th-century wall, with ten gates on radial roads, rested on Forts Saint-Jean and Saint-Nicolas, military works of Vauban's era that still dominate the city and the Old Port.

Marseille has a metro with trains on rubber tires.

One station has giant vegetables painted on its walls!

Marseille's metro has two lines, with trains that run on rubber tires. Its first section opened in 1977, and today the lines are 21.8 kilometers long, mostly underground.

Some stations are decorated: Noailles has pictures of old trains, trams and trolleybuses, and Notre-Dame du Mont has huge vegetables painted on the walls to show the way to a nearby market.

UrbanRail describes two rubber-tired metro lines, like Lyon's and some in Paris, totaling 21.8 km, 18.1 km of it underground, with sections opening from 1977. The lines cross at Castellane and Saint-Charles, the main railway station.

Most stations are functional, but some have themes: Saint-Charles shows a high-speed train on one side and a 19th-century steam train on the other, Noailles shows old trains, trams and trolleybuses, and Notre-Dame du Mont has huge painted vegetables pointing the way to the market.

Next to Marseille are white rocky hills and little bays. Eagles, bats and big lizards live there.

Sea birds float on the waves.

Along Marseille's southern coast, white limestone hills such as Marseilleveyre rise above narrow inlets called calanques. They are part of the Calanques National Park, created in 2012.

The park has 100 protected kinds of animals. One of France's 32 pairs of Bonelli's eagles nests there, Cory's shearwaters float in groups on the waves in summer, and 13 kinds of bats live in the park. The ocellated lizard, which can be 80 centimeters long, lives there too.

The park describes three ranges: the Calanques massif of compact white Urgonian limestone rich in fossils and the Saint-Cyr range of dolomitic and sandy limestone, which reach the summits of Marseilleveyre, Mont Puget and Mont Carpiagne and end at Cassis, and beyond Cassis the Cap Canaille massif.

Of 80 bird species observed nesting or possibly nesting, 67 are protected nationally, including Bonelli's eagle (one of France's 32 pairs nests there); the yellow-legged gull, called 'gabian' in Marseille, has seen its numbers stabilize. The park counts 13 bat species, including the European free-tailed bat with its 40 cm wingspan, and the ocellated lizard, up to 80 cm long.