With its characteristic architecture, the city of Toulouse has earned the nickname "ville rose" or "pink city" due to the colour of the local building material traditionally used - terra cotta bricks. Toulouse is now one of Europe's high-tech cities with a large number of cutting-edge businesses in the aeronautic, IT and space industry, as well as many research institutes. It is an important university town with prestigious cultural centres.
Toulouse is undergoing rapid demographic expansion, the fastest-growing in France and, for agglomerations with more than 850,000 inhabitants, even in Europe. It is considered one of the larger intermediate European cities along with Lyon, Marseille, Florence, Hamburg and Zurich.
Toulouse was ranked by Lonely Planet among the 10 European Destinations in 2014.
Toulouse is situated in the south of France, at the northern tip of the Haute-Garonne département, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The city lies on a bend in the River Garonne which, flowing down from the Pyrenees, heads north-east before changing direction in Toulouse to head north-west towards the Atlantic Ocean.
- By plane
Toulouse-Blagnac airport is the 5th largest airport in France. It provides direct flights to 87 destinations, 73 of which are international flights.
There are 72 flights a day between Toulouse and Paris (flight time: 1 hour).
Link to Toulouse-Blagnac airport
- By train
A large number of rail links have long been running between Toulouse and other French cities (Bordeaux, Montpellier, Lourdes, Biarritz etc.) as well as Paris. There is also a very well-developed network of regional trains linking Toulouse to all the other large towns in the Midi-Pyrénées region and also to major towns in other regions (Carcassonne in Languedoc-Roussillon, Pau and Agen in Aquitaine etc.)..
Link to Toulouse-Matabiau train station
- By car
Toulouse lies on a crossroads of many motorways: to the north, the A62 towards Bordeaux and the A20 to Paris; to the west, the A64 towards Biarritz; to the south, the A66 towards Barcelona; and to the east towards Montpellier (A61) and Albi (A68).
