Lyon is the capital of the Rhone-Alps and the Rhône département in eastern France.
The city lies at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saone. With about 466,400 inhabitants, it is to Paris and Marseille, the third largest city in the country. The approximately 1.3 million inhabitants, is the second largest conurbation in France after the Ile-de-France, the Paris region with approximately 11.5 million inhabitants. To argue this position, however, for many years, the cities Lyon and Marseille.
The Old Town in 1998 Lyons was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Lyon is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. Diocese is the Cathedral Saint-Jean in Old Town. Striking is the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere which overlooks the entire city. In 1871 it was built on top of the hill.
The Lyon restaurant enjoys an exquisite reputation. The variety of traditional cuisine found in the rare combination of alpine and navigable access to the Mediterranean near its origin. North and south of the city close to the vineyards of Beaujolais and Côtes du Rhône. Historically, the city is closely linked with the canuts, the silk weavers, whose trade during the industrial revolution was the driving economic force. In addition, Lyon is known as a city of light, the annual honor on 8 December, the “Fete des Lumieres” is celebrated.
Lyon is the birthplace of the physicist André Marie Ampère, the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the cook’s world-famous Paul Bocuse and the forerunner of the modern cinema, the Lumière brothers.
Lyon has been controversial 43 BC by the Romans under the name Celtic Lugdunum (Hill of Light or hill of the ravens, the etymology remains) as an administrative center of Gaul. Previously, at the same place was already a Celtic settlement. This role had held the city more than three centuries before its importance declined in the wake of the downfall of the Roman Empire. The city’s name changed over the centuries in language and thus has nothing to do with the lion (frz. to lion).
In the year 177, the martyr Blandina here was burned, which was made later to the patron saint of Lyon. The later Roman Emperor Caracalla on 4 April 188 in the present-day Lyon was born, the administrative center of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis, the governor, his father was. He was named Septimius Bassianus. In late antiquity there existed a “university” in which among other things, Sidonius Apollinaris studied. Lyon was also an early diocese or archdiocese. 461 the city fell to the Burgundians, and remained until the Frankish conquest of 534 royal residence. The city was devastated by 725 the Arabs, who invaded from Spain coming to the Franks. Only in the 11th Century became Lyon again greater national significance, as the Roman Catholic church in the city the headquarters of Gaul (primacy of Gaules) kindly, she holds today. The Archbishop of Lyon, which is traditionally made a cardinal, is still the primate of the Catholic Church in France.
The city fell in 1032, as well as the entire Kingdom of Aries, to the Holy Roman Empire. In the Renaissance, Lyon experienced because of the silk trade, a new development thrust. 1310 the city was occupied by French troops, the plague raged in 1348 in Lyon.
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