Marseille - Definition

Marseilles redirects here. There is also Marseilles, Illinois.

Marseille.

Marseille (English Marseilles (now rarely used), Provençal Marsilha) is the second largest city in France. Located in the former province of Provence and on the Mediterranean sea, it is France's largest commercial port.

It has a population of 807,071 (1999 census), and 1,516,340 for the wider Marseille-Aix-en-Provence metropolitan area (in French: aire urbaine).

Marseille is the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur région, as well as the préfecture (capital) of the Bouches-du-Rhône département.

History

Marseille was founded in 600 BC by Greeks as a trading port. It was overrun by Celts and then conquered by the Romans. During the Roman times, it was called Massilia.

Highlights

• The old harbor
• Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde
• Château d'If, an ancient prison island, where The Count of Monte Cristo was jailed, in Alexandre Dumas' novel
• Unité d'Habitation de Marseille, by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier

Culture

The French rap band IAM is from Marseille.

The most widely circulated tarot deck comes from Marseille; it is called the Tarot de Marseille, and was used to play the local variant of tarocchi before it came to the notice of people who used it in cartomancy.

The French national anthem "La Marseillaise" is named for Marseille.

Miscellaneous

The metro is rubber-tired.

The city's main football club is Olympique de Marseille, Champions League winner in 1993 but tainted by the 1990s match-fixing scandal by then-owner Bernard Tapie.

Marseille was the birthplace of:

• Maurice Béjart (born 1927), ballet choreographer
• Jean-Henry Gourgaud, aka. "Dugazon" (1746-1809), actor
• Désirée Clary (1777-1860), wife of King Carl XIV Johann of Sweden, and therefore Queen Desirée or Queen Desideria of Sweden
• Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), first president of the Third Republic
• Etienne Joseph Louis Garnier-Pages (1801-1841), politician
• Honore Daumier (1808-1879), caricaturist and painter
• Joseph Autran (1813-1877), poet
• Olivier Émile Ollivier (1825-1913), statesman
• Joseph Pujol, aka. "Le Pétomane" (1857-1945), entertainer
• Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), poet and dramatist
• Vincent Scotto (1876-1952), guitarist, songwriter
• Fernandel (1903-1971), actor
• Eliane Browne-Bartroli (1917-1944), French Resistance, Croix de Guerre
• Louis Jourdan (born 1919), actor
• Jean Pierre Rampal (1922-2000), flutist
• Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000), author
• Zinedine Zidane (born 1972), soccer player
• Clara Morgane (born 1981), porn star

See also

• Marseille Marine Fire Battalion

External links

• Interactive Virtual Tour (http://www.marseillenet.com)
• Marseille (http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/bouches/marseill/marseill.htm)
• Early history (http://www.ancientroute.com/cities/massilia.htm)
• Metro (http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/mar/marseil.htm)