The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending from the rock formation Massif de l'Esterel to Menton, at the France–Italy border, although some other sources place the western boundary further west around Saint-Tropez or Toulon. The coast is entirely within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. The Principality of Monaco is a semi-enclave within the region, surrounded on three sides by France and fronting the Mediterranean. The French Riviera contains the seaside resorts of Cap-d'Ail, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Cannes, and Théoule-sur-Mer.
Riviera is an Italian word that originates from the ancient Ligurian territory of Italy, wedged between the Var and Magra rivers. Côte d'Azur is originally a nickname given by France to the County of Nice after its annexation in 1860, because the climate was similar to that of the north of Italy, even in winter, with "a sky as blue as its sea". When the Mistral (Northwest) and the Tramontane (North) winds are blowing in the Languedoc and Provence areas, the temperature of the Mediterranean can be very cool in summer. This phenomenon is observed very little or not at all on the coast between the French Riviera and the Italian Riviera.
This coastline was one of the first modern resort areas. It began as a winter health resort for the British upper class at the end of the 18th century. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales. In the summer, it also played home to many members of the Rothschild family. In the first half of the 20th century, it was frequented by artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Francis Bacon, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham and Aldous Huxley, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. After World War II, it became a popular tourist destination and convention site. Many celebrities, such as Elton John and Brigitte Bardot, have homes in the region.
Officially, the French Riviera is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents,INSEE 1999 census although estimates of the number of non-French nationals living in the area are often much higher.e.g. Comité Régional du Tourisme Riviera Côte d'Azur. Its largest city is Nice, which has a population of 340,017 as of 2017.Téléchargement du fichier d'ensemble des populations légales en 2017 , INSEE The city is the centre of a —Nice-Côte d'Azur—bringing together 49 communes and more than 540,000 inhabitants and 943,000 in the urban area. Nice is home to Nice Côte d'Azur Airport, France's third-busiest airport (after Charles de Gaulle Airport and Orly Airport), which is on an area of partially reclaimed coastal land at the western end of the Promenade des Anglais. A second airport at Mandelieu was once the region's commercial airport,Official site: Cannes.aeroport.fr but is now mainly used by private and business aircraft.Official site: Cannes.aeroport.fr
The A8 autoroute runs through the region, as does the old main road generally known as the Route nationale 7 (officially now DN7 in Var and D6007 in Alpes-Maritimes).National 7 website: Nationale7.com High-speed trains serve the coastal region and inland to Grasse, with the TGV Sud-Est service reaching Nice-Ville station in five and a half hours from Paris. The French Riviera has a total population of more than two million. It is home to a high tech and science park (French: technopole) at Sophia-Antipolis (north of Antibes) and a research and technology centre at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. The region has 35,000 students, of whom 25 percent are working toward a doctorate.Sirius CCINCA. The French Riviera is a major yachting and cruising area with several marinas along its coast. According to the Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency, each year the Riviera hosts 50 percent of the world's superyacht fleet, with 90 percent of all superyachts visiting the region's coast at least once in their lifetime.Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency – p.31 CRDP-Nice.net As a tourist centre, the French Riviera benefits from 310 to 330 days of sunshine per year, of coastline and beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3,000 restaurants.Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency, op.cit. p.66
Etymology Origin of term
The term French Riviera comes by analogy with the term Italian Riviera, which extends east of the French Riviera (from Ventimiglia to La Spezia).In English, "Riviera" as a whole is defined as "the coastal strip along the Mediterranean from La Spezia, Italy, to west of Cannes, France". Webster's New World Dictionary of American English, Third College Edition, 1988. As early as the 19th century, the British referred to the region as the Riviera or the French Riviera, usually referring to the eastern part of the coast, between Monaco and the Italian border.For example, J. Henry Bennett, Mentone, the Riviera, Corsica and Biarritz as Winter Climates (1862) Riviera is an Italian noun which means "coastline".
The name Côte d'Azur was given to the coast by the writer Stéphen Liégeard in his book, La Côte d’azur, published in December 1887. Liégeard was born in Dijon, in the French department of Côte-d'Or, and adapted that name by substituting the azure colour of the Mediterranean for the gold of Côte-d'Or.Marc Boyer, L'Invention de la Côte d'Azur : l'hiver dans le Midi, préface de Maurice Agulhon, 378 pages, Édition de l'Aube, 2002, .
In Occitan (Niçard and Provençal) and French, the only usual names are Còsta d'Azur in Occitan and Côte d'Azur in French. A term like "French Riviera" (Ribiera Francesa in Occitan, Riviera Française in French) would only be used in literal translation, or adaptations of it. For instance, in French, "Riviera Française" is found in the online Larousse encyclopedia to refer to the holidays of a group of English workers (moreover, in Occitan, the word ribiera "coastline" mostly works as a common name, whereas in French, the old-fashioned term Rivière de Gênes was used to refer to the Italian Riviera whose center is Genoa).Harrap's Standard French and English Dictionary, 1948.
Disputes over the extent of the Riviera and the Côte d'Azur
Côte d'Azur and the French Riviera have no official boundaries. Some sources put the western boundary at Saint-Tropez. Others include Saint Tropez, Hyères or Toulon in the Var (departement), or as far as Cassis in the Bouches-du-Rhône departement."Côte d'Azur, côte méditerranéenne française entre Cassis et Menton" ("Côte d'Azur, French Mediterranean coast between Cassis and Menton") in Dictionnaire Hachette encyclopédique (2000), p. 448."Côte d'Azur, Partie orientale du littoral français, sur la Méditerranée, de Cassis à Menton" ("Côte d'Azur, Eastern part of the French coast, on the Mediterranean, from Cassis to Menton"), in Le Petit Larousse illustré (2005), p. 1297. In her 1955 novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith describes the Riviera as including all of the coast between Toulon and the Italian border.
History
From prehistory to the Bronze Age The region of the French Riviera has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Primitive tools dating to between 1,000,000 and 1,050,000 years ago were discovered in the Grotte du Vallonnet, near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, with stones and bones of animals, including bovines, rhinoceros, and bison. At Terra Amata (380,000 to 230,000 years ago), near the Nice Port, a fireplace was discovered that is one of the oldest found in Europe.Henry de Lumley, La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes europeens, p. 120.
Stone dolmens, monuments from the Bronze Age, can be found near Draguignan, while the Valley of Marvels (Vallée des Merveilles) near Mount Bégo, at elevation, is presumed to have been an outdoor religious sanctuary, having over 40,000 drawings of people and animals, dated to about 2000 BC.Aldo Bastié, Histoire de la Provence, Edition Ouest-France, 2001.
Greek influence Beginning in the 7th century BC, Greek sailors from Phocaea in Asia Minor began to visit and then build emporia along the Côte d'Azur. Emporia were started at Olbia (Hyères); Antipolis (Antibes) and Nikaia (Nice). These settlements, which traded with the inhabitants of the interior, became rivals of the Etruscans and Phoenicians, who also visited the Côte d'Azur.
Roman colonization In 8 BC, the Emperor Augustus built an imposing trophy monument at La Turbie (the Trophy of the Alps or Trophy of Augustus) to mark the pacification of the region.
Roman towns, monuments and amphitheatres were built along the Côte d'Azur and many still survive, such as the amphitheatre and baths at Cimiez, above Nice, and the amphitheatre, Roman walls and other remains at Fréjus.
Barbarians and Christians Roman Provence reached the height of its power and prosperity during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. In the mid-3rd century, Germanic peoples began to invade the region, and Roman power weakened.
In the same period, Christianity started to become a powerful force in the region. The first cathedrals were built in the 4th century, and bishoprics were established: in Fréjus at the end of the 4th century, Cimiez and Vence in 439, and Antibes in 442. The oldest Christian structure still in existence on the Côte d'Azur is the baptistery of Fréjus Cathedral, built at the end of the 5th century, which also saw the founding of the first monastery in the region, Lerins Monastery on an island off the coast at Cannes.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the first half of the 5th century was followed by invasions of Provence by the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Ostrogoths. There was then a long period of wars and dynastic quarrels, which in turn led to further invasions by the Saracens and the Normans in the 9th century.
The Counts of Provence and the House of Grimaldi Some peace was restored to the coast by the establishment in 879 of a new kingdom of Provence, ruled first by the Bosonids dynasty (879–1112), then by the Catalans (1112–1246), and finally by the Angevins (1246–1382, elder branch, 1382–1483 (younger branch).
In the 13th century, another powerful political force appeared, the House of Grimaldi. Descended from a Genoese nobleman expelled from Genoa by his rivals in 1271, members of the different branches of the Grimaldis took power in Monaco, Antibes and Nice, and built castles at Grimaud, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Antibes. Albert II, the current Prince of Monaco, is a descendant of the Grimaldis.
In 1388, the city of Nice and its surrounding territory, from the mouth of the Var to the Italian border, were separated from Provence and came under the protection of the House of Savoy. The territory was called the Comté de Nice after 1526, and thereafter its language, history and culture were separate from those of Provence until 1860, when it was re-attached to France under Napoleon III.
Provence retained its formal independence until 1480, when the last Comte de Provence, René I of Naples, died and left the Comté to his nephew, Charles du Maine, who in turn left it to Louis XI of France. In 1486, Provence formally became part of France.
Popularity with the British upper class in 18th and 19th centuries Until the end of the 18th century, the area later known as the Côte d'Azur was a remote and impoverished region, known mostly for fishing, olive groves and the production of flowers for perfume (manufactured in Grasse).