Toulouse

The Toulouse metropolitan area has 1.250 million residents,¹ while the city proper has 390 thousand.² The city is centered on the right bank of the Garonne River, although it extends to the other side, within Haute-Garonne (Upper-Garonne) Department, Midi-Pyrénées Region, France. The tallest building is the 21 story Tour du Parc (Tower of the Park).³ The Canal du Midi, which is honored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, runs through the city. The Basilica Saint-Semin, the largest Romanesque church in Europe,³ is part of another World Heritage Site honoring the pilgrimage Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.

Pierre Fermat worked in Toulouse (and spent his life never far away). He is best known for his Last Theorem (known from a posthumously published teaser in 1670), whose first published proof was by obtained by the work of Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor (1994-95).

External references

Pont Neuf of Toulouse, Haute-Garonne (Upper-Garonne) Department, Midi-Pyrénées Region, France

Historical map

Footnotes

1. Figure for 2011 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_area_(France), accessed 2/5/2015.
2. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_France, accessed 2/5/2015.
3. Emporis.com, accessed 6/30/2015.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse, accessed 6/30/2015.