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There are many cities in France that are famous for different reasons, either because they have an interesting history, or because they are especially nice places to go to. Fame is a difficult thing to assess as various people will have different perceptions of them. For instance other than Paris, which is the capital and that every one knows about, people will choose those that they know personally or have heard of and you will get many different answers.
However there is an official ranking of cities which has been done taking into consideration their importance and population. This is it:
1 Paris 2,152,000
2 Marseille 808,000
3 Lyon 422,000
4 Toulouse 366,000
5 Nice 346,000
6 Strasbourg 256,000
7 Nantes 252,000
8 Bordeaux 213,000
9 Montpellier 211,000
10 Rennes 204,000
11 Saint-Etienne 202,000
12 Le Havre 197,000
13 Reims 185,000
14 Lille 178,000
15 Toulon 170,000
16 Grenoble 154,000
17 Brest 153,000
18 Dijon 152,000
19 Le Mans 148,000
20 Angers 146,000
21 Clermont-Ferrand 140,000
22 Amiens 136,000
23 Limoges 136,000
24 Nîmes 134,000
25 Tours 133,000
26 Metz 124,000
27 Besançon 119,000
28 Caen 116,000
29 Mulhouse 110,000
30 Orléans 108,000
31 Perpignan 108,000
32 Rouen 105,000
33 Nancy 102,000
34 Roubaix 98,000
35 Avignon 89,000
36 Pau 84,000
37 Poitiers 83,000
38 Calais 76,000
39 La Rochelle 74,000
40 Dunkerque 71,000
41 Saint-Nazaire 66,000
42 Valence 65,000
43 Lorient 62,000
44 Troyes 61,000
45 Chambéry 56,000
46 Annecy 51,000
47 Angoulême 46,000
48 Douai 44,000
49 Bayonne 42,000
50 Thionville 41,000
Other cities which are not on this list may be famous for what actually happens in them such as being the most important for a specfic activity or something that happened there in the past.
For instance, a town like Boulogne-sur-mer is well known for being the first fishing port of France, Lourdes for pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary, Arcachon for its oysters, Cannes for its film festival, Besançon for its clock making industry, La Rochelle because it was the most important protestant city in the 17th century, Verdun because of the terrible battle that took place there in WW1, Versailles because of the palace that was built there, Arromanches because of the WW2 landings, Chamonix for the winter Olympics, Deauville for its Casino, Beaune for its famous wine and medieval hospice, Sèvres.for its fine bone china, Arques for its glass and crystal industry as everybody in France drinks from glasses made there, and so on....and yet some of them like Arques, Sèvres, or Beaune may actually be famous but relatively small. |
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