Marseille

Marseille presents itself at first glance as a city shaped by the sea and by centuries of exchange: its administrative heart pulses with 873,076 inhabitants, spread across 240.62 square kilometres on the Mediterranean shore. Within its municipal boundaries, this second-largest city in France unfolds a tapestry of streets, ports and hills, while the wider Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis hosted 1,911,311 souls at the 2021 census.

From its foundation around 600 BC by Greeks from Phocaea, who christened the settlement Massalia, Marseille has never ceased to renew itself. The vestiges of that Greek port lie buried beneath the Jardin des Vestiges, where fragments of fortifications, paved roads and Roman docks whisper of an origin as Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited settlement. Over the centuries, each wave of traders and settlers—Phoenicians, Romans, medieval mariners, colonial merchants and modern entrepreneurs—has imprinted a layer of commerce and culture on the city’s evolving face.

At its core, the Old Port remains both a memory and a magnet. For more than twenty-five centuries, vessels laden with olive oil, wine, spices, silk and, later, steel and petroleum, have arrived at its quays. It was here, half a millennium ago, that the first barrels of Marseille soap—boiled down from local olives and scented with lavender—took shape, forging a name still synonymous with purity. Above these waters stands the basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, locally “Bonne-mère,” whose Romano-Byzantine domes and gilded copper Madonna gaze protectively over the city—a symbol as enduring as the stone ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean and Fort Saint-Nicolas that guard the port’s entrance.

The city’s modern resurgence began in earnest with the Euroméditerranée project in the 1990s, a vast scheme of urban renewal that opened new horizons of glass and steel. The Hôtel-Dieu, once a hospital entwined with the rhythms of life and death, was reborn as a luxury hotel; the tramway lines now thread through broad avenues; the Velodrome Stadium swells with the roars of Olympique de Marseille supporters; and the CMA CGM Tower, sleek and skyward, marks Marseille’s status as a hub of global shipping. On the waterfront, Rudy Ricciotti’s MuCEM (Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean) crowns old Fort Saint-Jean, adding one more facet to a museum count second only to Paris. In 2013 Marseille bore the title European Capital of Culture, and four years later it claimed European Capital of Sport—accolades that signal a city both reflective and ambitious.

Geography here is never background: it is living, breathing context. To the east, the calanques carve pale cliffs into azure sea, from the fishing hamlet of Callelongue to the cliffs above Cassis. Beyond them, the Sainte-Baume ridge rises through deciduous forest, and farther still lie Toulon’s naval harbour and the glimmering strand of the Côte d’Azur. Northward, the Garlaban and Étoile ranges form a low arc, behind which Mont Sainte-Victoire—painted again and again by Cézanne—asserts its limestone bulk. To the west, villages like l’Estaque inspired Renoir and Braque; beyond lies the Côte Bleue and the wetlands of the Camargue. The city airport, at Marignane, perches beside the Étang de Berre, a reminder of the region’s complex interplay of land and water.

Strolling eastward from the Old Port, the Canebière—once dubbed “the most beautiful avenue of the world”—still channels the city’s pulse, from the bustle of Rue St Ferréol and the Centre Bourse shopping arcade to the shaded squares of Réformés and Castellane, where fountains punctuate the din of buses and metro trains. Rue St Ferréol intersects with Cours Julien and the Cours Honoré-d’Estienne-d’Orves, pedestrian worlds of cafés, street art and music. To the south-west, the hills of the 7th and 8th arrondissements rise in terraces toward Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde; to the north, Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles anchors the city, its grand staircase linking boulevard and boulevard, rail and road.

Climate shapes Marseille with a mercurial mix of sea air and mountain breeze. Winters are mild—daytime highs around 12 °C, nights near 4 °C—and rain drifts in on westerly fronts. Summers bake under a Mediterranean sun—daytime peaks of 28 to 30 °C at Marignane, a few degrees cooler on the shore—while the mistral wind clears skies and spirits. With nearly 2,900 hours of sunshine a year, Marseille claims the title of France’s sunniest city; annual rain totals barely exceed 532 millimetres, and snow is a curiosity rather than a hazard. Yet records remind the city of extremes: a heat wave of 40.6 °C in July 1983, a bitter low of –16.8 °C in February 1929.

Marseille’s economy still bears the imprint of its port. The Grand Port Maritime de Marseille drives some 45,000 jobs and contributes roughly €4 billion in regional value. Each year, 100 million tons of freight pass through its terminals—two thirds in petroleum—making it the leading French port, the second in the Mediterranean and fifth in Europe by tonnage. Container trade, long stifled by social unrest, has rebounded with expanded capacity. Waterways connect Marseille to the Rhône basin and beyond; pipelines feed refineries; and cruise ships disgorge 890,000 visitors yearly, part of a total of 2.4 million sea-borne patrons.

Beyond commerce, the city courts visitors with its heritage. The Palais du Pharo overlooks the port from its limestone terrace; Parc Chanot and the World Trade Center host conventions; cultural edifices from the Palais Longchamp to the Postmodern La Marseillaise tower press new architecture into service. With 24 museums and 42 theatres, Marseille stakes a claim on France’s cultural map, while festivals—from Fi est a des Suds to Jazz of the Five Continents, from the International Film Festival to the Independent Carnival of the Plain—animate streets and stages.

Yet Marseille’s story is as much about its people as its monuments. As early Mediterranean migrants settled in Noailles market, so successive waves—Italians, Armenians, North Africans—have woven a human mosaic. Lebanese bakeries and African spice stalls stand beside Chinese grocers and Tunisian cafés; fishmongers ply daily catches on the Quai des Belges. Armenians, trading silk since the 16th century under royal patents, lent their name to mansions and bastides, scores of which still cluster beyond the urban core, reminders of a Bourgeoisie that once fled the city’s heat for country retreats.

Urban geographers note that Marseille’s mountainous rim has contained segregation, producing a city less prone than Paris to suburban unrest—a point made evident in 2005, when riots gripped other French cities while Marseille remained remarkably calm. Nonetheless, caution is advised: pickpockets and petty theft have risen, northern quartiers (with few exceptions) can prove risky, and the shadow of organized crime lingers. After dusk, football hooligans and an underbelly of vice swirl around Boulevard Michelet on match nights, a reminder that Marseille’s edge has long fuelled both its appeal and its perils.

Transport networks mirror this blend of ancient and modern. Marseille Provence Airport ranks fourth in France; motorways A7, A50 and A8 fan out toward Aix-en-Provence, Toulon and the Riviera. Railway lines converge at Saint-Charles, linking Paris in three hours by TGV and Lyon in ninety minutes, while Eurostar and Thello services connect to London and Milan. Eleven suburban stations, a new bus terminal, and a ferry hub with links to Corsica and North Africa extend the city’s reach.

Within the city, the RTM metro carries travellers on two lines since the 1970s, tram lines pulse through Joliette, and a 104-line bus network threads every arrondissement. Bike-share stations proliferate, and ferries shuttle pedestrians across the Old Port and to the calanques, gliding past Frioul’s islands and the fortress of If, immortalized by Dumas.

Marseille’s demographic journey reflects its fortunes. After a post-war peak above 900,000, the city contracted during the oil crisis, then stabilized and resumed modest growth in the 2000s. Today’s 858,000 inhabitants—Marseillais—live alongside 1.6 million in the greater metropolitan expanse, making Marseille France’s third-largest urban area after Paris and Lyon.

Through epochs of glory and hardship, Marseille has demonstrated an uncanny capacity for reinvention. From its Bronze Age cave art in Cosquer Cave to its bold museums and new parks, from medieval abbeys to postmodern towers, the city invites both scrutiny and surprise. In its drumbeat of languages, its chiselled limestone façades and its brushed-steel docks, Marseille embodies a restless spirit: one that values tradition yet embraces change, that balances gritty realism with unexpected beauty, whose narrative remains palpably alive.

As the Mediterranean light falls on Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde and the gulls wheel over the Old Port, Marseille offers a final truth: here is a place defined not by a single image or moment, but by the continual layering of human endeavor. Its stones and streets, its markets and monuments, its winds and waters—they all speak of a city that endures by turning the page, again and again, on its own storied history.