Toulouse

Toulouse 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 2006, the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in France and the fastest growing in Europe. It is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with notably Alcatel Alenia Space, EADS Astrium, and Galileo; and it hosts the headquarters of Airbus S.A.S.. Toulouse was the capital of the former province of Languedoc (provinces were abolished during the French Revolution). It is now the capital of the Midi-Pyrénées région, the largest région in metropolitan France. It is also the préfecture (capital) of the Haute-Garonne département. It is the seat of the Académie des Jeux Floraux, the equivalent of the French Academy for the Occitan-speaking regions of southern France, making Toulouse the unofficial capital of Occitan culture. The traditional Occitan cross was adopted as the symbol of both the City of Toulouse and the newly-founded Midi-Pyrénées région. Area Code: + 5