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French Cities

To Paris's northeast, near the border-spanning metropolitan area of Lille-Kortrijk is the metropolitan area of Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes--with a population of 1.5 million. At the juncture of the Saone and Rhône sits the silk manufacturing city of Lyon, provincial capital when France was part of the Roman Empire. Well up the Garonne valley is Tououse with 1.1 million metropolitan residents. Well downstream is Bordeaux, with a metropolitan population of about one million. Finally there is Marseilles, a large port east of the mouths of the Rhône.

Over a million

Name Metro population (millions)
Armentières: see Lille-Kortrijk
Athis-Mons: see Paris
Béthune: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Bordeaux 1.1411
Broay-la-Buissière:2 see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Courbevoie: see Paris
Denain: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Douai: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes 1.6523
Forbach: see Saarbrucken-Forbach
Henin-Beaumont: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Lens: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Liévin: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Lille: see Lille-Kortrijk
Lille-Kortrijk4 1.9832
Loos: see Lille-Kortrijk
Lyon5 1.8632
Marseille 1.6681
Paris6 12.0765
Nice 1.1411
Orly: see Paris
Roubaix: see Lille-Kortrijk
Toulouse 1.0041
Tourcoing: see Lille-Kortrijk
Tremblay-en-France: see Paris
Valenciennes: see Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes
Versailles: see Paris

Selected smaller cities or former cities of historical note

NameAlternate names
Abbeville
Agde
Agen
Albi
Amiens
Angers
ArlesArelate
Arras
Auch
Avignon
Bayonne
Besançon
Béziers
Blois
Boulogne-sur-Mer
Bourges
Cahors
Calais
Cambrai
Carcasonne
Châlons-en-Champagne
Chartes
Clermont-Ferrand
Compiègne
DunkerqueDunkirk
le Havre
Joué-lès-Tours: see Tours
LaonAlavdanvm
Metz
Nancy
Narbonne
Orange
Orléans
Périgueux
Poitiers
le Puy-en-Velay
Rheims
Saintes
Saumur
Strasbourg
la Teste-de-Buch
Tours
VienneVienna

Footnotes

1. Figure for 2011 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_area_(France), accessed 2/5/2014.
2. Also called Broay-en-Artois.
3. 2012 calculation in world-gazetteer.com, accessed 2/6/2013.
4. '-Tournai' is sometimes appended to the metropolitan name (for example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe, accessed 2/5/2014); Kortrijk and Tournai are in België/ Belgique 'Roubaix-Tourcoing' used to more commonly be appended to the name.
5. Formerly Lvgdvnvm.
6. Formerly also Parisivs.