Toulouse is by its population the fourth municipality (commune) of France after Paris, Marseilles and Lyon. According to the 1999 census it has 398,423 inhabitants in a surface of 118.3 km ², 761,090 an urban area of and a metropolitan area of 964.797. The estimations for 2004 were of 426,700 in the municipality, 844,910 an urban area of and a metropolitan area between 1.065.000 and 1.080.000 what it would locate it like the villa of France and first in population increase.
It is crossed by the Garona river (Garonne in French). It is located to the southwest of the country, to 100 km of the Spanish Pyrenees. He is capital of the department of the Garona Stop and of the Noon-Pyrenean region, it is the historical capital of the province of the Languedoc or, in occitano, Lengadòc. It receives the nickname of Pink City by the dominant color in the old buildings, facts with seen bricks. Its altitude average is of 141 meters, the relief is little rough.
“Him capitole”, City council of Toulouse.
Toulouse is a city that is separated from the great French tourist routes relatively, but that combines influences gasconas and languedocienses and represent deep an historical and artistic synthesis.
It is a city whose artistic vigor is represented by an element: the brick.
Moved away of the pirenaicas quarries and in the middle of a slime plain, the brick - cooked mud has been key element to build palaces and churches and to give to the large city a rosaceous and humble tone.
Both sides of the Garona extend one of the greater cities of France, occitana capital, with a certain urban anarchy and an alive atmosphere in terraces and strolls that to him something of Spanish flavor grants.
Toulouse is the capital of Midi-Pyrénées, and it is organized around his rosaceous building of the Capitole. It has a history rooted in the days of Rome and the Barbarian kingdoms; he was capital of the kingdom visigodo and important point from the peregrinations to Santiago.
By Toulouse - Tolosa the travelling ones were directed that came from good part of the Europe of the south and entered by Somport in the direction of Navarre and Compostela. This one was the call Via Tolosana.
It is - together with Bordeaux city marked by the Garona, wide river that is born in Spain and directs pirenaicas waters of the north towards the Atlantic.
Rooted in history, it has had the opportunity to connect with modernity thanks to a series of economic activities, mainly the aerospace industry.
The large city, with than more average million inhabitants, is in a midpoint of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, between Montpellier and Bordeaux.