43°37N 3°52E, pop (2000e) 217 000. Industrial and commercial city, and capital of Hérault department, S France; 123 km/76 mi NW of Marseille; founded around a Benedictine abbey, 8th-c; airport; railway; bishopric; university (1289); wine trade, textiles, printing, concrete, machinery, wood products; birthplace of Comte; Gothic Cathedral of St Pierre (1364), many 17th18th-c patricians' and merchants' houses, Doric triumphal arch (1691), Château d'Eau (aqueduct terminal); Jardin des Plantes, France's first botanical garden (1593); Musée Fabre, Atger Museum.
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Commune of Montpellier Place de la Comédie in Montpellier |
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| Location | |
| Coordinates | 43°36′43″N, 3°52′38″E |
| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Région |
Languedoc-Roussillon (chief town) |
| Département | Hérault (préfecture) |
| Arrondissement | Montpellier |
| Canton | Chief town of 10 cantons |
| Intercommunality | Communauté d'agglomération Montpellier Agglomération |
| Mayor |
Hélène Mandroux-Colas (2004-2008) |
| Statistics | |
| Altitude |
7 m–57 m (avg. 27 m) |
| Land area¹ | 56.88 km² |
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Population² (1999) |
225,392 |
| - Density (1999) | 3,963/km² |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 34172/ 34000, 34070, 34080, 34090 |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > | |
Montpellier (Occitan Montpelhièr) is a city in the south of France. Population of the city (commune) of Montpellier at the 1999 census was 225,392 inhabitants, whereas the whole metropolitan area (in French: aire urbaine) had a population of 459,916 inhabitants in 1999. As of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city of Montpellier reached 244,700 inhabitants, meaning a 1.7% population growth per year between 1999 and 2004.
History
Montpellier is one of the few cities in France without a (Gallo-)Roman background.
William VII of Montpellier established a faculty of medicine in 1180, recognised by Pope Nicholas IV;
The city became a possession of the kings of Aragon in 1213 by the marriage of Peter II of Aragon with Marie of Montpellier, who brought the city as her dowry. Montpellier gained a charter in 1204 when Peter and Marie confirmed the city's traditional freedoms and granted the city the right to choose twelve governing consuls annually. Montpellier remained a possession of the crown of Aragon until it passed to James III of Majorca, who sold the city to the French king Philip VI in 1349, to raise funds for his ongoing struggle with Peter IV of Aragon. With its importance steadily increasing, the city finally gained a bishop, who moved from Maguelone in 1536 and sat in the neighbouring community of Montpelliéret (eventually absorbed into Montpellier proper). Louis XIV made Montpellier capital of Bas Languedoc, and the town started to embellish itself, by building the Promenade du Peyrou, the Esplanade and a large number of houses in the historic centre.
Lords of Montpellier
Main article: Lords of Montpellier
William I of Montpellier (d. 1019) William II of Montpellier (d. 1025) William III of Montpellier (d. 1058) William IV of Montpellier (d. 1068) William V of Montpellier (d. 1120) William VI of Montpellier (d. 1311)University
The University of Montpellier is one of the oldest in France, having been granted a charter in 1220 by Cardinal Conrad von Urach and confirmed by Pope Nicholas IV in a papal bull of 1289.
It is not known exactly at what date the schools of literature were founded which developed into the Montpellier faculty of arts; The school of law was founded by Placentinus, a doctor from Bologna university, who came to Montpellier in 1160, taught there during two different periods, and died there in 1192. The faculty numbered among its illustrious pupils of law Petrarch, who spent four years at Montpellier, and among its lecturers Guillaume de Nogaret, chancellor to Philip the Fair, Guillaume de Grimoard, afterwards pope under the name of Urban V, and Pedro de Luna, antipope as Benedict XIII.
The Montpellier school of medicine owed its success to the ruling of the Guilhems, lords of the town, by which any licensed physician might lecture there; the Porte du Peyrou, a triumphal arch The Aqueduc Saint-Clément the Antigone District and other housing projects have been designed by the architect Ricardo Bofill from Catalonia, Spain
Famous inhabitants of Montpellier
Montpellier was the birthplace of:
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne, (c.1110-1179). botanist, founder of the concept of plant families Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès (1753-1824), lawyer and statesman, author of the Code Napoléon Guillaume Mathieu, comte Dumas (1753-1837), military leader Auguste Comte (1798-1857), a founder of the discipline of sociology Antoine Jerome Balard (1802-1876), chemist Émile Saisset (1814-1863), philosopher Charles Bernard Renouvier (1815-1903), philosopher Édouard Albert Roche (1820-1883), astronomer Alfred Bruyas (1821-1876), art collector Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), painter Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870), Impressionist painter Léo Malet (1909-1996), crime novelist Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968), organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogueStudents at the University of Montpellier have included François Rabelais (1493-1553) and Nostradamus (1503-1566).
Facilities
Transport
Montpellier is served by railway, including TGV trains.
The Montpellier-Méditerranée Airport is located in the area of Fréjorgues, in the town of Mauguio, southeast of Montpellier.
Sport
The city is home to a variety of professional sports teams:
Montpellier Hérault SC of Ligue 2 who play association football at the Stade de la Mosson Montpellier Hérault Rugby Club, of the Top 14 who play rugby union at the Stade Sabathé Montpellier Vipers of France's Division 1 Ice Hockey Federation, play at the Patinoire de l'Agglomération de Montpellier at OdysseumCulture
Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon Festival de Radio France et MontpellierTwin cities
Montpellier is twinned with:
Lakewood, United States, since 1918 Louisville, United States, since 1955 Heidelberg, Germany, since 1961 Barcelona, Spain since 1963 Chengdu, China, since 1981 Tiberias, Israel, since 1983 Fes, Morocco, since 2003
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