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Lyon

Lyon in the Rhône Department1 of France is centered on a peninsula just north of the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. As of 2012 it had 1.863 million residents,2 and the commune proper had a population of 445 thousand (1999 census).3 When a Roman colonia it was commonly called Lvgdvnvm; the council of the Three Gauls (Roman provinces) met in the ampitheatre (1st century BCE) on Croix-Rousse Hill.4 The city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, honoring the Roman, medieval, and 16th to 19th century buildings and layout. Another Roman building is the 1st century CE theatre on Fourvière Hill that could seat 10,000.4 In Bellecour Square, below that hill, is an equestrian statue of Louis XIV.

The tallest building is the 42 story Tour Part-Dieu (1977). Another famous building is the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvières.5

The mathematician and architect, Girard Desargues, was born in Lyon.

NameYearPopulationPolitical entity
Lvgdvnvm100 CE50,0006Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs (Roman Empire)

External references

Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvières, Lyon, Rhône Department, Rhône-Alpes Region, France

Historical maps

map showing part of the Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs (Roman Empire), 100 CE

map showing part of the Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs (Roman Empire), 361 CE

map showing part of the Regnum Burgundiae (Kingdom of Burgundy), 500 CE

map showing part of Francia (France), 622 and 800 CE

map showing part of Regnum Provincia (Cisjurane Burgundy), 900 CE

map showing part of Arelat, 1000 CE

map showing part of Regnvm Tevtonicvm (the Holy Roman Empire), 1100 CE

Footnotes

1. Rhône-Alpes Region.
2. World-gazetteer.com, accessed 2/6/2013.
3. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_France, accessed 2/5/2015.
4. Information about the ampitheatre, the council and the theatre is from UNESCO, World Heritage Sites (Firefly Books, 2010). Hill names are French.
4. Emporis.com, accessed 3/3/2015.
5. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). In 100 CE it was the largest city in what is now France.