Toulouse, the Pink City

8 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture Reading Time:  6 minutes

Toulouse Capitole © Benh LIEU SONG

Toulouse Capitole © Benh LIEU SONG

Toulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km (366 mi) away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan.1 2006, the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in France, after Paris (12 million), Lyon (1.8 million), Marseille (1.7 million). Toulouse is one of the bases of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, and CNES’s Toulouse Space Centre (CST), the largest space centre in Europe. Thales Alenia Space, Europe’s largest satellite manufacturer, and Astrium Satellites, EADS’s satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. Its world renowned university is one of the oldest in Europe (founded in 1229) and, with more than 97,000 students, is with Lille the third-largest university campus of France after Paris and Lyon.   read more…

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