Tours | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 134817 |
Tours ( TOOR, French: [tuʁ] (listen)) is the prefecture of the Indre-et-Loire department and largest city in the Centre-Val de Loire region of Western France, although it is not the regional prefecture, which is the region's second-largest city, Orléans. In 2017, the commune of Tours had 135,787 inhabitants; the population of the whole metropolitan area was 495,379.Tours stands on the lower reaches of the Loire river, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Former Caesarodunum city of the Turones, founded by the Emperor Augustus, it possesses one of the largest amphitheaters of the Roman Empire. Known for the Battle of Tours (732), it is a National Sanctuary with Saint Martin, Gregory of Tours and Alcuin under the Merovingians and the Carolingians, with the adoption by the Capetians of the local currency the Livre tournois which became the currency of the kingdom. Capital of the county of Tours which became the Touraine, the garden of France. First city of the silk industry, wanted by Louis XI, royal capital under the Valois Kings with its Loire castles and city of art with the School of Tours.
Pearl | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate (mainly aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite) in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.
The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls. Cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold.
Frankfurt (officially: Frankfurt am Main (German: [ˈfʁaŋkfʊʁt ʔam ˈmaɪn] (listen); Hessian:...
Khartoum or Khartum ( kar-TOOM; Arabic: الخرطوم, romanized: Al-Khurṭūm) is the capital of Sudan....
Damascus ( də-MASS-kəs; Arabic: دِمَشْق, romanized: Dimašq [diˈmaʃq], Syrian Arabic: [dɪˈmaʃʔ] is...
Fianarantsoa is a city (commune urbaine) in south central Madagascar, and is the capital of Haute...