Founded more than 2,500 years ago, the port city of Marseille (English conventional spelling Marseilles) has a history of vigorous independence asserted against central authority in a variety of forms. It retained its status as a free city even after falling to Julius Caesar's troops in the 1st century BC, and after centuries of decline it was revived and allowed great independence under the local control of the viscounts of Provence in the 10th–14th centuries. After Provence joined the Kingdom of France in the 15th century, Marseille retained a separate administration and continually engaged in spirited revolt against kings or governments that threatened its liberties. It was for this reason that in 1800, when France was divided into the present administrative départements, Marseille was only reluctantly granted its status as capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône.

Frenchmen elsewhere, convinced that the Mediterranean climes of Provence could never be fully integrated into either the French realm or the Gallic spirit, long looked upon Marseille as a sort of folkloric institution: a place of comic anecdote and dialect, with a seasoning of picturesque criminality; a place where the citizens played a peculiar form of outdoor bowling known as pétanque, concocted the glorious garlic- and saffron-flavoured fish stew known as bouillabaisse, and consumed rich, savory, absinthe-like Provençal pastis.

By whatever proportion fact may have been coloured with myth in its image, Marseille undoubtedly forms a major element in the economic and social structure of France. With Aix-en-Provence it forms the second largest urban agglomeration in France, and in association with the outport of Fos-sur-Mer (Fos), about 23 miles (37 kilometres) to the northwest, it is the country's largest seaport. Under the Socialist mayor Gaston Defferre (Defferre, Gaston), whose administration, from 1953 until his death in 1986, was the longest in its history, Marseille experienced major transformation—a process that is still continuing.

The character of Marseille has been determined to a great extent by geographic location. Its natural harbour, sheltered by a semicircle of limestone hills on the Gulf of Lion (Lion, Gulf of) and close to the estuary of the Rhône River, offered its first settlers the prospect of linking the Mediterranean seaways with northern Europe across a land that, in classical times, was made largely impassable by forests. The trading port founded by Greeks from the city of Phocaea in about 600 BC was to attract both settlers and visitors. The first of these account for a heterogeneous population and the second for services designed to cater to seamen and merchants. Marseille has the oldest chamber of commerce in France, established in 1599. It is a city of mosques and synagogues, besides many varieties of Christian churches. Its bars and brothels have been a magnet for dishonest dealings, and its waterfront still evokes the romance of a gateway to distant lands.

The city's most enduring characteristic, however, has been its readiness to welcome change. Its architecture preserves few vestiges of the past. Some landmarks, such as the transporter bridge that crossed the Old Port (Vieux-Port) and the Panier district north of the harbour, were destroyed by the German occupation forces in 1943 and 1944, during World War II. But more change has been wrought by the Marseillais themselves. Despite the legend that attaches to them, they are an unsentimental people open to new ideas.

For centuries, Marseille's mixed population and its inclination to political dissidence had made the city seem both foreign and marginal to French life and culture. After World War II, however, it was able to develop as a major European port and industrial centre. The city that had been the starting point for past colonial enterprises bore a large share of the aftermath of French colonialism. It proved remarkably successful in absorbing new waves of immigrants, notably the former European colonists who crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa after Algeria won its independence in 1962. The building of the industrial complex at Fos-sur-Mer also attracted many thousands of migrant workers from North Africa in the 1960s, posing further problems of housing the city's immigrant population. Since this period, demographic growth has slowed. However, successive economic crises since the 1970s, combined with major restructuring by large industrial groups, have created persistent unemployment, particularly among immigrants. This situation has been aggravated by racial hostility toward immigrants and by their marked concentration in particular districts of the city, especially certain northern suburbs. In an attempt to resolve such problems, these areas have become priority targets for the government's urban rehabilitation programs.

Marseille lies in a sheltered depression surrounded by hills, which have inhibited the development of suburbs. The Old Port is a natural harbour and one of the most westerly of the inlets along the rocky coastline characteristic of the northeastern Mediterranean; farther west, beyond a large tidal lake called the Berre Lagoon (Étang de Berre), the shoreline flattens out. There the sandy dunes of the Gulf of Fos and the Camargue region in the Rhône's delta were less attractive to early mariners and were only later seen as offering possibilities for development.

Marseille's natural port was extended in Roman times and again from the 16th century onward to accommodate increased traffic and larger ships. By the 19th century the Old Port was insufficient. An artificial basin at La Joliette, built on the bay just outside of the Old Port, began operation in the mid-1840s, and five additional basins were subsequently built along a five-mile stretch of the bay. Further expansion was also undertaken to the west of the city, with the creation in 1863 of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. Eventually, in 1965, work began on the development of the port complex at Fos-sur-Mer (Fos). The port opened in 1968, and work on the accompanying industrial estate continued into the 1970s.

Marseille's hinterland consists of a chain of mountains, known as the Étoile Chain, which leads northward toward Aix-en-Provence (formerly Marseille's rival as capital of the region) and to Mount Sainte-Victoire. The slopes around Aix are devoted to vineyards, which produce the wines of the Côtes de Provence (“Hills of Provence”). The Étoile Chain has put a limit on the northward expansion of the city, with the result that development has “leapfrogged” this natural barrier in favour of the eastern shores of the Berre Lagoon, around the suburbs of Marignane and Vitrolles. The eastern boundaries of the city have also been extended outward by the pressures of urban growth, particularly along the line of the Huveaune valley.

The climate of Marseille is not typical of the Mediterranean region as a whole. The lowest rainfall and highest temperatures are found in the hot, dry months of summer, but rainfall reaches a peak in spring and autumn, rather than in winter. The coldest months are December and January, when there is some frost, but otherwise the winter is mild. During the summer months the temperature rises to levels that would be unpleasant were it not for the sea breeze. In winter, Marseille is particularly subject to the dry, cold northwest wind known as the mistral, which blows down the Rhône Valley, at times with considerable force.

The popular area of Marseille was the seedy district, north of the Old Port, known as the Panier, which was destroyed in 1943. The more prosperous middle-class districts developed in the 19th century to the south around the rue Paradis and the avenue du Prado. The period following World War II saw various schemes to develop the city, including the Unité d'Habitation, an 18-story residential block that expressed the architect Le Corbusier (Corbusier, Le)'s ideal of urban family lodging. The block was intended, when completed in 1952, to be one of six such units; it is now surrounded by luxury apartment buildings. Less attractive are the high-rise, working-class housing blocks developed after 1960, which have come to house a large number of immigrant families. Since the 1970s the municipal authorities have undertaken a massive program of rebuilding in various parts of the city, restoring some of the Panier and turning the district around the Old Port into a largely pedestrian area. The area to the north of the Old Port, extending eastward toward the main railway station (Gare Saint-Charles), is the focus of a major program of urban renewal known as the Euroméditerranée, designed to refurbish existing buildings, provide new housing and office floor space, and create a new university site.

From the historic centre of Marseille at the Old Port, the thoroughfare of La Canebière climbs eastward up the hill; its name is a corruption of a Latin word for hemp, recalling Marseille's importance as a source of hemp and supplier of hemp rope in the Middle Ages. Thronged by people from around the world, La Canebière is the best-known commercial street in Marseille. Its starting point is marked by one of the most imposing public buildings in the city, the Bourse, which houses the Chamber of Commerce and a maritime museum.

Behind the Bourse, building operations in 1967 for a new retail and office complex uncovered a section of the Hellenistic ramparts of Massalia. Excavated by archaeologists, the site, dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, was found to consist of walls and towers and three sections of Roman road. The ancient port was also excavated. Nearby, close to City Hall on the edge of the port, is the Museum of Roman Warehouses (Musée des Docks Romains), which displays storage jars and other remains of commerce under Roman domination and traces the subsequent history of the port.

The port entrance is guarded by the Fort Saint-Jean, a 13th-century command post of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers); some ruins remain, along with a tower built in the mid-15th century by René I of Provence. The extant fortress, dating from the 17th century, was part of a nationwide system of defenses. The other side of the harbour entrance is occupied by Fort Saint-Nicolas. In the harbour itself lie the Frioul Islands, on which the city has developed a large centre for water sports. Between these islands and the mainland is the Château d'If (If), a fortified island where Alexandre Dumas (Dumas, Alexandre, père)'s fictional count of Monte Cristo and large numbers of all-too-real political prisoners were incarcerated.

Other historic buildings are located around the Old Port. In the Place de la Major, the old cathedral of la Major, built on the ruins of a temple of Diana, dates from the 11th century; it was partially dismantled to make way for the eight-domed structure that in 1852 replaced it as the city's cathedral. The dome and supporting arches of the old cathedral are fine examples of Provençal Romanesque stonemasonry.

Nearby is the Old Charity Hospital (Hospice de la Vieille Charité), built between 1660 and 1750. The interior courtyard surrounds a chapel by Pierre Puget (Puget, Pierre), regarded as the most powerful of French Baroque sculptors. Close by is the Hôtel Dieu (hotel dieu), the oldest hospital in the city, built at the end of the 16th century. The principal building, by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (Mansart, Jules Hardouin-), was erected 200 years later and still serves its original function. Almost next door, the bell tower of the vanished church of Accoules, a 14th-century spire mounted on a 12th-century tower, marks the centre of Old Marseille.

On the opposite side of the port stands the crenellated, square-towered basilica of Saint-Victor, dating from the 11th to the 14th century; it once was attached to an abbey founded about 413 by St. John Cassian (Cassian, Saint John) to commemorate a 3rd-century martyr and patron saint of sailors and millers. When Saint-Victor was built, the abbey was a temporal power of considerable extent, ruling properties in Spain, Sardinia, and the hinterlands of France.

High on the hill over the south side of the Old Port stands the celebrated Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, a sanctuary honoured from the 8th century. Its present structure was built in 1853–64; its steeple, crowned by a 30-foot (nine-metre) gilded statue of the Virgin, rises 150 feet over the hillside.

Marseille's population, drawn from all parts of the Mediterranean and from elsewhere in Europe and Africa, has always been mixed, so that it has never been possible to talk of a “typical” Marseillais. In 1880, for example, more than one in six of the inhabitants of the city was foreign. New residents have created a diverse pattern, sometimes concentrated in certain districts, such as the Muslim quarter that grew up during the 1970s north of La Canebière, and sometimes specializing in particular trades or professions. Certain groups—Jews, Greeks, Armenians—have their own community leaderships, which have semiofficial recognition.

Former colonials have had a strong impact on the community, and Marseille has always attracted Corsicans (including the Bonaparte family during the French Revolution). Manual labour is increasingly performed by North Africans or Africans who arrive from former colonies. There are marked social contrasts within the city. La Canebière forms an approximate dividing line between the working-class, often run-down areas of the north and the more affluent and salubrious districts of the south.

Marseille itself has never been a major industrial centre; historically, its importance has been much more in trade and commerce. Nevertheless, certain industries did develop in Marseille. The oldest, founded in the 15th century, was the manufacture of soap (soap and detergent) from olive oil produced in the surrounding district. Other activities included food processing (linked to both imported agricultural products and those originating from the surrounding region), shipbuilding (ship construction) and ship repair, metallurgy, clothing, chemicals, and precision engineering. Many of these industries have either disappeared (as in the case of shipbuilding) or been reduced in importance through loss of markets or transfer to the city's periphery. Heavy industry (oil refining (petroleum refining) and petrochemicals (petrochemical)) grew up around the Berre Lagoon in the 1950s following the building of an outport at Lavéra capable of receiving large oil tankers (tanker). This trend was accelerated from the late 1960s with the opening of the Fos port-industrial complex and with the addition of more petrochemical plants as well as steelworks (steel). The majority of these installations use raw materials that enter through the port of Fos, and some of their finished products also leave by sea. The industrial zone is also directly linked to the national rail and highway networks, to the South European Pipeline, and to the Rhône inland waterway.

Lighter industrial development, warehousing, and transport-related activities have also greatly expanded north to the outlying districts of Marignane (site of Marseille's international airport) and Vitrolles. A similar trend is evident to the east along the Huveaune valley in the direction of Aubagne. Within Marseille itself a number of new industrial and related service activities have become established in fields such as electronics, data processing, telecommunications, and biomedicine. New sites have also been developed, including the Château-Gombert science park in the city's northeastern suburbs. The city's maritime location and traditions have also led to the growth of industries and services in offshore exploration and engineering.

The port complex of Marseille–Fos is the largest in France and among the largest in Europe. It is administered by the Port Autonome de Marseille (“Autonomous Port of Marseille”), a financially autonomous state enterprise that is responsible for the construction, administration, and maintenance of the industrial zones at Fos and Lavéra and the port facilities at Marseille, Lavéra, Caronte, Fos, and Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. In addition to administering Marseille–Fos, the Port Autonome de Marseille also provides advice, information, and planning services for port authorities around the world. It is financed by rents, taxes, and fees for services, with state aid for investment in construction of harbours and quays.

In recent years the commercial traffic of the port complex has exceeded 90 million tons annually. The majority of this total is imports, mostly crude oil. Other imports include refined oil products, liquified natural gas, chemical products, and raw materials for the steel and aluminum industries. Exports consist mostly of refined oil products, chemicals, and steel. Containerized traffic of general merchandise is rising.

The different port zones have become increasingly specialized. Marseille itself handles roll-on/roll-off traffic(of both passengers and freight, principally to Corsica and North Africa), visits of cruise liners, and some bulk food products. Lavéra specializes in petroleum and chemical products, and Fos handles oil, other dry and liquid bulk cargoes, and containers. At Marseille there are also large ship repair yards, though their importance has greatly diminished.

Because of its geographic position and its commercial importance, Marseille has long been able to attract foreign capital. In the mid-19th century two major banks were established: the Société de Crédit Foncier de Marseille in 1852 and the Société Marseillaise de Crédit Industriel et Commercial et de Dépôts in 1865. Local money was directed both into industrial projects in the region and into foreign ventures such as the Suez Canal Company. But the disintegration of the French empire during the 20th century helped to accelerate the decline of Marseille as a financial centre. In this respect the relative lack of regional headquarters of large multinational firms represents another weakness in the city's economy.

Nonetheless, as capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur région, Marseille has considerable financial influence in the public sector. The Centre Méditerranéen de Commerce International (Mediterranean Centre for International Trade) was opened in 1983 to reassert the position of Marseille as a commercial and financial centre. It is anticipated that the Euroméditerranée complex will further enhance the city's role as a business capital.

Marseille has good external connections. Two highways provide access to the north, and another highway reaches the city from the east. The high-speed train (TGV; Train à Grande Vitesse), running on purpose-built track, makes it possible to reach Lyon in one hour and Paris in three. To the north of the city, the Marseille-Provence Airport (France's third-ranking airport for passenger traffic, after Paris and Nice) provides links to several destinations in France, Europe, and North Africa.

Within the city, movement is more problematic. Road congestion is severe, despite a tunnel under the centre linking the northern and eastern highways. Public transportation has been improved with the introduction of two underground metro lines and a surface tramway serving part of the eastern suburbs.

The city government consists of a popularly elected municipal council. The council keeps very much alive the historical tradition of local independence in spite of the intimate involvement of many national ministries in the financing and planning of projects throughout the area.

The city is divided into 16 arrondissements, but for the purposes of local government these are grouped into eight secteurs, which elect mayors. In addition to the eight city halls, one for each secteur, there are two “mini city halls” in each arrondissement. The city mayor is assisted by a local government of 27 adjoints, each with responsibility for a particular facet of government, such as town planning, culture, finance, employment, or transport, and by delegate councillors who assist the adjoints or undertake more detailed responsibilities.

The city's adjoints oversee the main urban services administered by the local authorities: lighting, refuse disposal, relations with the police and fire services, and so on. An unemployment rate above the national average and a large population of immigrant workers has exacerbated the problem of providing public services. In summer the region is particularly threatened by forest fires, and Marseille is the centre from which fire fighting is coordinated. A fleet of specially equipped airplanes is stationed at the airport.

There are two teaching hospital complexes in Marseille, the North Hospital and the Timone Hospital. The centre for the study of tropical medicine at the Michel Lévy Hospital is well known. A computer centre in the suburb of Luminy links the region's hospitals.

Three universities have sites in the city. The University of Aix-Marseille I offers courses in the sciences in Marseille (with courses in the arts and social sciences offered in Aix-en-Provence). The University of Aix-Marseille II has its faculty of medicine in Marseille, and the University of Aix-Marseille III has units in the sciences and engineering in the city. Both Aix and Marseille also have technical universities. In addition, there is a series of graduate schools specializing in fields such as physics, management, and engineering.

Marseille has several museums, including a very popular Children's Museum. The Museum of Old Marseille was installed in 1960 next to the City Hall in Diamond House (La Maison Diamantée), so called because of its 16th-century facade of projecting diamond-shaped stone lozenges. The Cantini Museum, close to the rue Paradis, east of the Old Port, has a fine collection of Oriental art, of local pottery, and of modern paintings and sculptures.

Marseille has a number of historic sites and monuments, including its most famous landmark, the basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, perched high above the city. It has an opera house, is an important centre for the theatre and music, and has a national dance school with a national ballet company. All of these activities are administered by the Municipal Office of Culture. The city has tried to reflect the diverse cultures of Marseille by encouraging exchanges with artists and companies from Algeria and other North African countries. During the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol (Pagnol, Marcel Paul) founded a film studio in Marseille that made the city, for a time, the only centre of the industry outside the Paris region.

As building has increased within Marseille, more attention has been paid to the conservation and development of the municipality's parks and playgrounds. There are a large number of municipal sports centres and swimming pools, an outdoor theatre, and public beaches (centred around the Prado district and its aquarium). The parks of the Château du Pharo, Château Borély, and Palais Longchamp are extensive.

The oldest of the large French cities, Marseille was founded as Massalia (Massilia) by Greek mariners from Phocaea in Asia Minor about 600 BC. Archaeological finds exhibited in the Museum of Antiquities in the 18th-century Château Borély suggest that Phoenicians (Phoenicia) had settled there even earlier.

The Massalians spread trading posts inland as well as along the coasts, westward to Spain, and eastward to Monaco, founding the present cities of Arles, Nice, Antibes, Agde, and La Ciotat. Their coins have been found across France and through the Alps as far as the Tirol. In the 4th century BC a Massalian, Pytheas, visited the coasts of Gaul, Britain, and Germany, and a Euthymenes is said to have navigated the west coast of Africa as far south as Senegal.

When their great trade rivals, the Carthaginians, fought the Romans (ancient Rome) in the Punic Wars (Punic War, First), Marseille supported Rome (ancient Rome) and received help in subduing the native tribes of Liguria (Ligurian). When Pompey (Pompey the Great) and Julius Caesar (Caesar, Julius) clashed, Marseille took Pompey's side and subsequently fell to Caesar's lieutenant Trebonius (Trebonius, Gaius) in 49 BC. Although stripped of dependencies, it was permitted to retain its status as a free city in recognition of past services. For some time the city remained the last centre of Greek learning in the West, but, eventually, it declined almost to extinction. After centuries of invasion and epidemic, it became little more than a huddle of nearly abandoned ruins.

In the 10th century, under the protection of successive viscounts (viscount) of Provence, the area was repopulated, and it found new prosperity as a shipping and staging point for the Crusades. Gradually, the town bought up the rights of the viscounts, and, at the beginning of the 13th century, it formed a republic around the Old Port, though the upper part of the city and its southern suburb remained under ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The counts of Provence allowed the city great independence, and only in 1245 and 1256 did Charles of Anjou (Charles I) force acknowledgement of his sovereignty. After Marseille was sacked by Alfonso V of Aragon in 1423, René I of Provence, whose winter residence was there, restored prosperity to the city.

When Provence, including Marseille, became part of the kingdom of France in 1481, the city preserved a separate administration directed by royal officials. During the 16th-century wars of religion, Marseille was fanatically Roman Catholic and long refused to recognize Henry IV as king because, until his conversion to Catholicism and accession to the French throne, he had been leader of the Protestants. During the Fronde (Fronde, the), a movement in 1648–53 that opposed royal absolutism, the city sought to conserve its ancient liberties and rose against Louis XIV, who in 1660 came in person, breached the walls, and subdued the revolt. To discourage further manifestations of independence, the king planted Fort Saint-Nicolas at the southern extremity of the Old Port. In the same year, the city pushed inland to the west beyond its walls. A few buildings constructed in this expansion still survive in the area around the Cours Belsunce—a major thoroughfare—and the Préfecture.

Marseille joined enthusiastically in the French Revolution. Some 500 volunteers marching to Paris in 1792 sang “The War Song of the Rhine Army,” which had been composed in Strasbourg in the late 18th century. The song, which thrilled the crowds along the route of march, was renamed “La Marseillaise” (Marseillaise, La) and became the national anthem of France. As the early federalist concepts were washed away in the blood of the Reign of Terror (Terror, Reign of), however, the city revolted against the ruling National Convention. Quickly mastered by force of arms, it was officially designated as “the city without a name.” When its commerce was almost destroyed by the maritime blockade of the Continent directed against Napoleon (Napoleon I), Marseille became bitterly anti-Bonapartist and hailed the Bourbon (Bourbon, House of) restoration. Under Napoleon III, however, it remained stubbornly republican.

During the second half of the 19th century, Marseille was expanded as the “port of empire,” gaining impetus from the elimination of the Barbary pirates (Barbary pirate) (1815–35), the conquest of Algeria (1830), and the inauguration of the Suez Canal (1869). The great avenues and many of the monuments of the city were constructed in this period. A serious water problem was solved by a project (1837–48) that brought water from the Durance River (Durance). The distribution reservoir above the city was disguised as the Longchamp Palace, containing the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Fine Arts. The Château du Pharo, one of the city's principal landmarks, was built as a villa for Napoleon III and Eugénie at the edge of the bay beyond the Old Port, but it was never occupied by the imperial couple. The Bourse, an imposing colonnaded structure on La Canebière, was built in 1852–60 to house the Chamber of Commerce.

The city, occupied by the German army from November 1942 until August 1944 during World War II, continued to be an active centre of the French resistance movement, which partly explains the German decision to dynamite the Panier district and the Old Port in 1943. Further destruction was caused by German mines in August 1944.

The postwar history of Marseille is initially the story of the rebuilding of areas damaged in the war and the development of industrial and port complexes around Fos. It is also the story of a redistribution of population and economic activity. Central districts have lost population and have experienced industrial decline, particularly in areas adjacent to the 19th-century port, while peripheral zones have expanded massively, acquiring large housing estates and new industrial and commercial parks. Marseille remains an important economic centre, though its influence in southeastern France is rivaled by the city of Lyon.