Capital of Haute-Garonne département, SW France, on the river Garonne, SE of Bordeaux; The chief industries are textiles and aircraft construction (Concorde was built here). It was the capital of the Visigoths (see Goth) and later of Aquitaine 781–843.
features
Toulouse is known as “la ville rose” (the red city) because most of the buildings are made from red brick. It has a fine 12th–13th-century Romanesque church (St Sernin), the church of the Jacobins (belonging to a monastery founded 1216), and the 11th–17th-century cathedral of St Etienne. The main square is the Place du Capitole. The university was founded 1229.
history
Founded by the Romans, Toulouse was the Visigoth capital in the 5th century, then capital of Aquitaine 781–843, and later of Languedoc. The cultural center of medieval France in the 12th–13th centuries, it was captured 1218 by Simon de Montfort in the pope's crusade against the Albigensian heretics (the Count of Toulouse had been accused of complicity in the murder of a papal legate). The Duke of Wellington repulsed the French marshal Soult here 1814 in the Peninsular War. During the 20th century the city has expanded as a major European center of scientific research (aerospace, electronics, data processing, agriculture).