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Toulon (, , "Toulon" (US) and ; , Touloun , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var department.
The Commune of Toulon has a population of 176,198 people (2018), making it France's 13th-largest city. It is the centre of an urban unit with 580,281 inhabitants (2018), the ninth largest in France by population. Comparateur de territoire: Unité urbaine 2020 de Toulon (00757), Commune de Toulon (83137), INSEE, retrieved 16 June 2022. Toulon is the second largest French city by urban area on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille.
Toulon is an important centre for naval construction, fishing, wine making, and the manufacture of aeronautical equipment, armaments, maps, paper, tobacco, printing, shoes, and electronic equipment.
The military port of Toulon is the major navy centre on France's Mediterranean coast, home of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and her battle group. The French Mediterranean Fleet is based in Toulon. The 1793 siege took place during the Federalist revolts.
In the 2nd century BC, the residents of Massalia (present-day Marseille) called upon the Ancient Romans to help them pacify the region. The Romans defeated the Ligurians and began to start their own colonies along the coast. A Roman settlement was founded at the present location of Toulon, with the name Telo Martius – Telo, either for the local god of springs Telo or from the Latin tol, the base of the hill – and Martius, for the god of war. Telo Martius became one of the two principal Roman dye manufacturing centres, producing the purple colour used in imperial robes, made from the local sea snail called murex, and from the acorns of the oak trees. Toulon harbour became a shelter for trading ships, and the name of the town gradually changed from Telo to Tholon, Tolon, and Toulon.
A Saint Cyprian, disciple and biographer of St. Cæsarius of Arles, is also mentioned as a Bishop of Toulon. His episcopate, begun in 524, had not come to an end in 541; he converted to Catholicism two Visigoths chiefs, Mandrier and Flavian, who became and martyrs on the peninsula of Mandrier.A legend which states that a certain Cleon accompanied St. Lazarus to Gaul and was the founder of the Church of Toulon, is based on a 14th-century forgery that was ascribed to a 6th-century bishop named Didier. As barbarians invaded the region and Roman power crumbled, the town was frequently attacked by pirates and the Saracens.
In 1524, as part of his longtime battle against Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire, King François I of France completed a powerful new fort, the Tour Royale, Toulon, at the entrance of the harbour. However, a few months later the commander of the new fort sold it to the commander of an Army of the Holy Roman Empire, and Toulon surrendered.
In 1543, Francis I found a surprising new ally in his battle against the Holy Roman Empire. He invited the fleet of Ottoman Empire Admiral Barbarossa to Toulon as part of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. The residents were forced to leave (except for the heads of household), and the Ottoman sailors occupied the town for the winter. See Ottoman occupation of Toulon.
In 1646, a fleet was gathered in Toulon for the major Battle of Orbetello, also known as the Battle of Isola del Giglio, commanded by France's first Grand Admiral, the young Grand Admiral Marquis of Brézé, Jean Armand de Maillé-Bréze of 36 galleons, 20 galleys, and a large complement of minor vessels. This fleet carried aboard an army of 8,000 infantry and 800 cavalry and its baggage under Thomas of Savoy, shortly before a general in Spanish service.
King Louis XIV was determined to make France a major sea power. In 1660, his Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert ordered Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban to build a new arsenal and to fortify the town. In 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Toulon successfully resisted a siege by the Imperial Army led by Duke Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia of Savoy and Prince Eugene. However, in 1720, the city was ravaged by the black plague, coming from Marseille. Thirteen thousand people, or half the population, died.
In 1790, following the French Revolution, Toulon became the administrative centre of the département of the Var. However, in 1793, the Jacobin administration of the city was swept from power, allowing Girondins and royalists to take their place; the city then rose up against the central administration of the First Republic and joined the Federalist revolts. The new Federalist administration surrendered the city and its fleet to the British. French Republican forces then undertook the siege of Toulon, forcing the British to withdraw, taking a number of ships with them and destroying the rest of them. Napoleon Bonaparte served as an artillery captain during the event. To punish Toulon for its rebellion, the town lost its status as department capital and was briefly renamed Port-la-Montagne, after The Mountain faction.
In 1820, the statue which became known as the Venus de Milo was discovered on the Greek island of Milo and seen by a French naval officer, Emile Voutier. He persuaded the French Ambassador to Turkey to buy it, and brought it to Toulon on his ship, the Estafette. From Toulon it was taken to the Louvre.Cyrille Roumagnac, L'Arsenal de Toulon et la Royale. p. 43
In 1849, Louis-Napoleon named Georges Eugène Haussmann as the new Prefect of the Var department. He served there only one year, but he laid out the current street plan for the city center, as he would later do for the city of Paris.
In the 1890s , there were the Kronstadt- Toulon naval visits.
During World War II, after the Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) the German Army occupied southern France (Case Anton), leading French naval officers to scuttle the French Fleet based at Toulon on 27 November 1942. The city was bombed by the Allies in November of the following year, with much of the port destroyed and five hundred residents killed.
The Hôtel de Ville, centre of the administration of the city, was completed in 1970.
In 1979, the University of Toulon opened. Toulon was one of four French cities where the extreme-right Front National won the local elections in 1995. The Front National was voted out of power in 2001.
===Fountains of Old Toulon===
At the top of Mount Faron is a memorial dedicated to the 1944 Allied landings in Provence (Operation Dragoon), and to the liberation of Toulon.
The Museum of the French Navy (Musée national de la marine) is located on Place Monsenergue, next on the west side of the old port, a short distance from the Hôtel de Ville. The museum was founded in 1814, during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. It is located today behind what was formerly the monumental gate to the Arsenal of Toulon, built in 1738. The museum building, along with the clock tower next to it, is one of the few buildings of the port and arsenal which survived Allied bombardments during World War II. It contains displays tracing the history of Toulon as a port of the French Navy. Highlights include large 18th-century ship models used to teach seamanship and models of the aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle.
The Museum of Old Toulon and its Region (Musée du vieux Toulon et de sa région). The Museum was founded in 1912, and contains a collection of maps, paintings, drawings, models and other artifacts showing the history of the city.
The Museum of Asian Arts (Musée des arts asiatiques), in Mourillon. Located in a house with garden which once belonged to the son and later the grandson of author Jules Verne, the museum contains a small but interesting collection of art objects, many donated by naval officers from the time of the French colonization of Southeast Asia. It includes objects and paintings from India, China, Southeast Asia, China Tibet and Japan.
The Museum of Art (Musée d'art) was created in 1888, and contains collections of modern and contemporary art, as well as paintings of Provence from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. It owns works by landscape artists of Provence from the late 19th century (Paul Guigou, Auguste Aiguier, Vincent Courdouan, Félix Ziem), and the Fauves of Provence (Charles Camoin, Auguste Chabaud, Louis Mathieu Verdilhan). The contemporary collections contain works from 1960 to today representing the New Realism Movement (Arman, César, Christo, Klein, Raysse); Minimalist Art (Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd); Support Surface (Cane, Viallat côtoient Arnal, Buren, Chacallis) and an important collection of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dieuzaide, Edouard Boubat, Willy Ronis and André Kertész). See the page about the Museum on the official site of the Museums of the Var (in French)
The Memorial Museum to the Landings in Provence (Mémorial du débarquement de Provence) is located on the summit of Mount Faron, this small museum, opened in 1964 by President Charles De Gaulle, commemorates the Allied landing in Provence in August 1944 with photos, weapons and models.
The Museum of Natural History of Toulon and the Var (Musée d'histoire naturelle de Toulon et du Var) was founded in 1888, has a large collection of displays about dinosaurs, birds, mammals, and minerals, mostly from the region.
The Hôtel des arts was opened in 1998, presents five exhibits a year of works by well-known contemporary artists. Featured artists have included Sean Scully, Jannis Kounellis, Claude Viallat, Per Kirkeby, and Vik Muniz. See the site of the Museums of Toulon on the Toulon City Web Site (in French)
The average temperature in January, the coldest month, is , the warmest of any city in metropolitan France. In January, the maximum average temperature is . and the average minimum temperature is .
The average temperature in July, the warmest month, is , with an average maximum of . and an average minimal temperature of .
According to data collected by Météo-France, Toulon is the second city (after Marseille) in metropolitan France with the most sunshine per year: an average of 2,854.1 hours a year from 1991 to 2020, compared with 2,695 hours a year for Nice and 2,472 hours for Perpignan.Lameteo.org comparative climate statistics for cities of France. See also: http://climat.meteofrance.com This is due to the wall of mountains that largely protects Toulon from the weather coming from the north. With a yearly average temperature of , it is also one of the warmest cities in metropolitan France.
One distinctive feature of the Toulon climate is the wind, with 115 days a year of strong winds; usually either the cold and dry Mistral or the Tramontane from the north, the wet Marin; or the Sirocco sometimes bearing reddish sand from Africa; or the wet and stormy Levant from the east. (See Winds of Provence.) The windiest month is January, with an average of 12.5 days of strong winds. The least windy month is September, with 7 days of strong winds.
In Anthony Powell's novel What's Become of Waring the central characters spend a long summer holiday in Toulon's old town. Powell himself stayed at the Hotel du Port et des Negociants on two occasions in the early 1930s and writes in the second volume of his memoirs The naval port, with its small inner harbour, row of cafés along the rade, was quite separate from the business quarter of the town. A paddle steamer plied several times a day between this roadstead and the agreeably unsophisticated plage of Les Sablettes.
Joseph Conrad's last novel, The Rover, is also set around Toulon.
The last half of Dewey Lambdin's historical fiction novel, H.M.S. Cockerel, (the sixth novel in his Alan Lewrie naval adventure series) details the Siege of Toulon from Lewrie's perspective, as he commands a commandeered French barge carrying sea mortars against Lieutenant-Colonel Bonaparte's forces.
The port of Toulon is the main port of departures for ferries to Corsica.
The nearest airport is the regional Toulon-Hyères Airport. The proximity of Marseille-Provence Airport located at 80 kms of the city, serving international destinations in Europe, Africa, Middle East, North America and Asia and linked to the city-center by direct trains daily offers a good international connectivity to the city.
The A50 autoroute connects Toulon to Marseille, the A57 autoroute runs from Toulon to Le Luc, where it connects to the A8 autoroute.
The local public transport service, , operates 60 bus routes and 3 sea shuttle lines and is used by 30 million passengers annually.
The city hosts the final four of the annual Toulon Tournament, an international under-21 football tournament.
Toulon's main football team is Sporting Club Toulon, which plays in Championnat National, the third level of French football. Famous players such as Delio Onnis, Jean Tigana, Christian Dalger, David Ginola and Sébastien Squillaci have all played for Sporting.
The city has been chosen by Groupama Team France as the venue for the fifth event in the Americas Cup World Series 2016, alongside international cities such as Portsmouth & New York.
| RC Toulonnais | Rugby union | Top 14 | Stade Mayol |
| Toulon St-Cyr Var Handball | Team handball | Championnat de France de handball féminin | Palais des Sports |
| Hyères-Toulon Var Basket | Basketball | LNB Pro A | Palais des Sports and Espace 3000 |
| Sporting Club Toulon | Football | Championnat National | Stade de Bon Rencontre |
| Sporting Treiziste Toulonnais | Rugby league | National Division 1 | Stade Delaune |
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