Cologne | |
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State | North Rhine-Westphalia |
Country | Germany |
Capital | |
Population | 1069200 |
Cologne (English: kə-LOHN; German: Köln [kœln] (listen); Kölsch: Kölle [ˈkœlə] (listen); Latin: Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, usually shortened to Colonia Agrippina) is the largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth-most populous city in Germany. With slightly over a million inhabitants (1.09 million) within its city boundaries, Cologne is the largest city on the Rhine and also the most populous city both of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, which is Germany's largest and one of Europe's major metropolitan areas, and of the Rhineland. Centered on the left bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia's capital of Düsseldorf and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Bonn. It is the largest city in the Central Franconian and Ripuarian dialect areas.
The city's Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne. There are many institutions of higher education in the city, most notably the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln), one of Europe's oldest and largest universities; the Technical University of Cologne (Technische Hochschule Köln), Germany's largest university of applied sciences; and the German Sport University Cologne (Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln), Germany's only sport university. Cologne Bonn Airport (Flughafen Köln/Bonn) is Germany's seventh-largest airport and lies in the southeast of the city. The main airport for the Rhine-Ruhr region is Düsseldorf Airport.
Cologne was founded and established in Ubii territory in the 1st century AD as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, the first word of which is the origin of its name.
Lille | |
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State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
Lille ( LEEL; French: [lil] (listen); Dutch: Rijsel [ˈrɛisəl]; Picard: Lile; West Flemish: Rysel) is a city at the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord department, and the main city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille.
As of 2017, Lille had a population of 232,787 within its administrative limits, and Lille is the first city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille with a population of 1,146,320, making it the fourth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. More broadly, it belongs to a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk, Tournai and Menin, which gave birth in January 2008 to the Eurometropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), which has more than 2.1 million inhabitants.
Nicknamed in France the "Capital of Flanders", Lille and its surroundings belong to the historical region of Romance Flanders, a former territory of the county of Flanders that is not part of the linguistic area of West Flanders. A garrison town (as evidenced by its Citadel), Lille has had an eventful history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Very often besieged during its history, it belonged successively to the Kingdom of France, the Burgundian State, the Holy Roman Empire of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands before being definitively attached to the France of Louis XIV following the War of Spanish Succession along with the entire territory making up the historic province of French Flanders. Lille was still under siege in 1792 during the Franco-Austrian War, in 1914 and 1940.