Toulouse

Toulouse (pronounced {{IPA|/tuluz/}} in standard French, {{IPA|/tuˈluzə/}} in local Toulouse accent) (Occitan: Tolosa, pronounced {{IPA|/tuˈluz?/}}) is a city in southwest France on the banks of the Garonne River, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With close to 1.1 million inhabitants in 2005, the Toulouse metropolitan area is the second largest in southern France and one of the fastest growing in Europe. It is the home base of the European aerospace industry, such as Alcatel Espace and EADS Space, and hosts the headquarters of Airbus S.A.S..

Population

The population of the city proper (French: commune) was 390,350 (as of the 1999 census), with 964,797 inhabitants in the metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine) (as of 1999 census). As of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city proper reached 426,700 inhabitants, which means a record 1.8% population growth per year between 1999 and 2004 for the city proper.

Related Topics:
Commune - 1999 - Aire urbaine - 2004

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Toulouse is the fourth largest city in France, after Paris, Marseille and Lyon. In 1999 Toulouse was the fifth largest metropolitan area in France, after Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Lille.

Related Topics:
Paris - Marseille - Lyon - Lille

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Fueled by booming aerospace and high-tech industries, population growth of 1.5% a year in the metropolitan area in the 1990s (compared with a sluggish 0.37% for metropolitan France), and a record 2.2% yearly growth in the 2000s (0.58% for metropolitan France), means Toulouse metropolitan area hit the 1,000,000 inhabitants mark in 2002 or 2003. Boasting the highest population growth of any French metropolitan area larger than 500,000 inhabitants, Toulouse is well on its way to overtake Lille as the fourth largest metropolitan area of France.

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With 2.2% yearly population growth in the metropolitan area, Toulouse is also by far the fastest growing metropolitan area larger than one million inhabitants in Europe. Smaller metropolitan areas, such as Montpellier, France, may have higher growth rates than Toulouse, but their growth involves a much smaller number of inhabitants than in Toulouse. Even for North American standards, the population growth of Toulouse is quite remarkable. According to the US Census 2000, in the 1990s there were only 14 US metropolitan areas with a population over one million inhabitants that had a population growth superior to 2.2% per year. With 2.2% per year, Toulouse is growing almost twice faster than for instance the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s (1.2% per year), and approximately at the same pace as Nashville or Salt Lake City did in the 1990s, these last two also being two US metropolitan areas with about the same number of inhabitants as the Toulouse metropolitan area.

Related Topics:
Montpellier - San Francisco Bay Area - Nashville - Salt Lake City

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Note:

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• figures provided by French national statistics office INSEE
• figures up to and including 1954 can be compared with each other, as the limits of the urban area did not change until 1954, being only the city of Toulouse; after 1954 the urban area starts to include suburban communes, and the limits vary year after year
• INSEE started calculating metropolitan area data only in 1990, a metropolitan area being different from an urban area in that it also includes satellite towns and the agricultural land in between, thus better reflecting the modern-day phenomenon of commutes and hubs; metropolitan area data before 1990 are only estimates

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